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DON’T RISK THAT BOARD. 


ILL STARRED BABBIE 


y 


BY 

'f • & 

WILL W: WHALEN 


Author of 

“The Lily of the Coal Fields” 


Mayhew Pub. Co. 

100 Ruggles St., Boston, Mass. 


\ 





Copyright, 1912 

BY 

WILL W. WHALEN 



CCIA327292 


TO 

James J. Walsh, M. D m Ph. D., L.L. D., 
K. St. G., and Ex-Miner. 










Illustrations by 


F. S, BRUNNER. 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Crossing the Rubicon. 1 

II. The Prodigal Daughter 13 

III. Her Sister’s Betrothed. 27 

IV. Where’er I Came, I 

Brought Calamity 40 

V. A Striker’s Day-dream.. 52 

VI. Man’s Inhumanity to Man 57 

VII. Greek Meets Greek 61 

VIII. The Coal Mine Joan of 

Arc 73 

IX. Joan of Arc's Conquest. 80 

X. Like a Thief in the 


Night 95 

XI. Between Love and Duty 107 
XII. Joan of Arc at the 

Stake 112 

XIII. The Bloodless Battle. 126 

XIV. Nipped in the Bud 134 

XV. Among the Coal Banks. 149 

XVI. Jacob and the 

Daughters of Laban. 157 
XVII. The Seal Broken 165 


XVIII. In the External and 

Internal Forum 172 

XIX. The Battle of the 

Amazons 182 

XX. Cordelia 190 

XXI. The Eternal Sunrise. 199 
XXI I . The Prophet is Without 
Honor in His Own Coun- 
try 205 

XXIII. Years Later 211 


CHAPTER I. 


CROSSING THE RUBICON. 

The sun was bright that Wednesday 
morning, but the air was keen. The frozen 
particles which the wind tossed about 
stung the face like tiny, spiteful insects. 

Yet Babbie Conway’s veil was raised. 
She was listening eagerly to the man at 
her side, a man handsome, with a coarse, 
sensual beauty. He drew the heavy cover- 
ing closer about her, and she smiled, as the 
sleigh sped on. 

They had been driving for about fifteen 
minutes, and now the horse was climbing 
the mountain that rose, like a Cyclops, 
outside the city of Farringdon. The sleigh 
moved along slowly. The man’s blood 
was on fire, though the day was cold. 

“But you will marry me, Babbie?” he 
pleaded, his steel-blue eyes fastened on 
her. 

“I am so young,” she faltered, “not yet 
sixteen, and you are nearly thirty.” 

“My years will be only the more per- 
tection to you.” 


2 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“My father and sisters would not like 
me to marry you, Conrad Miller. I had 
to fib and steal away to take this ride with 
you. If our Rose knew, she would follow 
me. But,” with a laugh, “how I do like 
to tease her and pap ! Poor Hannah never 
says a cross word to me.” 

“I can’t bear that there queen of a sister 
of yours, that Rose; she always freezes 
me with them big eyes of hers. I pity 
the man what marries her; she’s too air- 
ified. She ain’t one-half as lovely as 
you.” 

“Don’t you think so?” Babbie’s cheek 
had a little more color in it. “Every one 
thinks Rose handsomer than lam. She’s 
like a beautiful swan, I’m a crow. And 
education! she taught me all I know. 
When it comes to brain, Rose beats any 
girl at Farringdon . ” 

“No lie about that. But you kin talk 
as good as her. And if I had the pick 
between you and her, I would take you. 
Rose must have been born in the middle 
of the winter, and some of the snow got 
into her make-up ; but you must’ve come 
with the spring, for you would win and 
melt down the hardest, coldest man’s heart 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


3 


that ever plumped his foot upon the 
earth.” 

He caught her hands and held them 
tight. How strong he was! She gloried 
in his strength. But she turned on him 
suddenly . 

“You have been drinking,” she said 
sharply, her arched brows coming together. 
“And you want me to spend my life with 
you, a man who swallows down beer on 
the day he asks a girl to marry him.” 

“But you will, you must, you’ve got to 
marry me.” 

“Must! I like that! You know Babbie 
Conway; don’t try to scare her.” 

Her little head was high. The devil in 
him was aroused. 

“You are aware that I am a desperate 
man. When a desperate man wants 
something, he’s a-going to get it.” 

“You talk like a Jesse James. But 
you have some things to learn about me, 
Conrad Miller. I won’t marry you.” 

She turned her face from him, and look- 
ed after a snowbird, whose little voice 
flowed back, “a never-frozen rill of 
melody.” 

The sleigh had reached the top of the 


4 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


mountain. Far below, through the bare 
trees, the small village of Fair view could 
be seen . The road was steep and slip- 
pery. To the right was the precipitous 
mountain side, slanting almost half a 
mile, full of grinning rocks, decayed 
stumps, and towering trees. 

Miller struck the horse with the whip, 
and she started off at a trot. She was 
a spirited little mare, and resented the 
undeserved cut. He threw the reins 
out of the sleigh, and slashed the horse 
three or four times with the whip . 
Babbie caught her lover’s arm; ihere 
was a terrible light in his eyes. 

“Heavens, Conrad! the horse is wild, 
is running away! Merciful God, we shall 
be dashed to pieces!” 

The road was flowing along like a 
swift stream of water. She cast a 
frightened glance to the right . A shud- 
der ran through her, and her brain 
reeled, as she saw the awful length of 
the mountain side down which she and 
her lover might be plunged any mo- 
ment. 

And never was life dearer than then. 
They were full of vigor and health, he 



HEAVENS, CONRAD, THE HORSE IS WILD 




































































4 





















. 































ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


5 


and she, life had many years for them; 
why should they give up life now? 

He took her in his arms and folded 
her close. 

“We will die together!” he whispered 
fiercely. “You brought this on yourself ; 
I ain’t no man to be trifled with.” 

The mare was maddened by the cut- 
ter, which forced her along. Babbie 
clung to her lover; his strength gave 
her a little assurance. 

The sleigh was sliding from the right 
to the left of the road; now on the very 
point of going down over the mountain 
side, now in the middle, now on the 
left of the road. A crash! 

For an instant, Babbie was bewildered, 
her face and eyes full of snow . Then she 
was lifted very gently to her feet, and she 
felt an arm about her. Dazed, she look- 
ed down over the mountain side. Far 
below lay the horse and cutter. Conrad 
Miller limped painfully. With a great 
effort, he had thrown Babbie and himself 
out into the snow just as the sleigh went 
over. 

He spoke. “A close shave you had at 
the hands of a madman. Babbie. You 


6 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


stirred up fifty devils inside me. God! 
it was a terrible thing to do.” He 
brushed the snow from her skirt. “You 
ain’t hurt, are you?” anxiously. 

“No,” was the laconic reply. 

“You see your power, you little hand- 
ful of spunk. I would commit murder 
for you . Be mine, and I will act like 
a black nigger slave for you . But re- 
fuse me, and look out; it would be better 
that you were down there.” 

He pointed to the shattered sleigh. 

“You were kind to me at first,” he 
went on, “but your sister Rose leads 
>ou around by the nose. What she 
says is law to you. She made a remark 
at Mrs. Kelly’s that you would never be 
my wife, for she would see to it.” 

Babbie tossed her head gracefully, stub- 
bornly. 

“No one shall rule me,” she said. 
“I was half teasing when I refused you, 
Conrad. I have paid dear for my teas- 
ing,” with a playful look. 

He raised one slender hand to his lips. 

That night there was a heavy snowfall. 
The white-robed winds were screaming 
like angry furies, and tearing one another. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


7 


Inside the Conway home, there was a 
storm no less fierce than that raging 
without. 

“You don’t know your own mind, 
Babbie Conway. You are too young for 
lovers. And where could you find a 
worse scoundrel than Conrad Miller?” 

Night peeping in, like a white ghost, at 
the window, saw the two lovely sisters 
face each other; one tall, the other short; 
one light, the other dark; one a self-pos- 
sessed Juno, the other a wilful, wild 
Diana. 

“You are only two years older than 
I am, Rose Conway, and you talk as if 
you were my grandmother. You dictate 
to me, when you might as well whip 
the frozen fog outside.” 

Babbie put on a cloud. 

“Pap, my words have no effect. This 
girl is going out to meet that worthless 
fellow, Conrad Miller,” said Rose. 

“Worthless!” retorted Babbie. “You 
might marry worse.” 

“Then God pity me.” 

Rose grew desperate. She swept to 
the door, to turn the key in the lock, 
but Babbie was there before her, and 


8 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


had hurled the key under the stove. 

“If you go out, you shall stay out,” 
threatened Rose. 

“Then stay out I will. Good night, 
good-bye.” 

Babbie, with her neck proudly arched, 
went forth into the night and storm. 
Sorrow seemed to be on the outside, 
and eagerly waiting to devour the wild 
girl, so roared the wind. Rose grew 
pale, as she turned to her father. 

“Do you think, pap, she meant that?” 

“Of course not. Don’t worry your- 
self, Rose, daughter.” 

The stately girl went to the window 
and looked out. 

What an awful night it was! The 
fierce wind was driving the snow against 
the panes, and whirling the heavy flakes 
in a mad dance about the stoop. The 
scene was an angry ocean of whiteness. 

But Rose did not see the man standing 
near the gate, with the veil-like garments 
of the blast lashing his face. A girl was 
at his side, who looked like a beautiful 
fairy born of the frost. 

“Babbie!” 

He had taken her in his arms, and 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


was looking down into the upturned face 
on his breast. 

Then off through the deep snow he 
plodded, half carrying her; by the tav- 
ern, with the brightly lighted windows, 
whence came the sounds of music and 
merriment; through the covered bridge, 
around which the wind shrieked, and 
under which flowed the restless, unfrozen 
sulphur creek; by the high, snow-mantled 
coal-banks; down the road, over the rail- 
road ties. 

The snowflakes chased one another 
madly. They rushed, in their wild flight, 
into the eyes, ears, and even the mouths 
of the man and the girl. But the couple, 
unheeding, trudged along till they reached 
the railway station. 

Late that night, two sisters sat and 
watched, one wondrously fair; watched 
and waited and prayed, Rose and Hannah 
Conway. In the next room the father 
could be heard groaning and pacing up 
and down. 

Outside, the wind wove seamless snow- 
drifts, and roared like an infuriated beast. 
It hurled itself against the old window- 
sashes, which struggled and shook be- 


10 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


neath its savage attack. The stout old 
door felt its assault, but gave no other 
sign of the struggle than a pitiful squeak. 

Inside, the lamp shed its bright pierc- 
ing rays about the spotless kitchen. The 
fire crackled loudly in the old range, upon 
which the kettle sang a song of welcome 
home . 

The dreary hours dragged on, till the 
windows were squares of pale, ghastly 
light at daybreak; but no black-eyed girl 
came. Morning came, noon came, but 
no Babbie came with them. 

After their father had gone to his work 
at the mines, Rose Conway, with a cloud 
drawn about her head, made the best of 
her way through the deep snow to the rail- 
way station. The wind almost carried 
her off her feet, as she crossed, by a short 
cut, a huge culm bank. The slender plank 
that stretched over the sulphur creek was 
covered with ice, but Rose did not pause 
for a second. She attempted to cross, a 
gust of wind came roaring along, she 
clutched at the air, and fell into the water. 
Fortunately the torrent was not strong, 
and she escaped with w T et shoes and skirts. 

The station agent’s eyes held pity as 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


11 


well as admiration when he looked at her 
tired, white face. He answered the ques- 
tion she put to him, and caught her about 
the waist, for she staggered. He forced 
her to swallow some water, and then he 
saw her, with a step like an old woman’s, 
gc up the road, her skirts frozen in cakes. 

“She has run away with that man, Han- 
nah. They have gone to Philadelphia. 
They bought single tickets last night. O 
Babbie, Babbie,” Rose was almost hys- 
terical, “mam’s own little baby that she 
died for!” 

Rose wept the more, for that she wept 
in vain. 

Hannah had more self-control. She 
pleaded with Rose to take off her frozen 
skirts, from which the kitchen fire was 
drawing streams of water, and forced a 
steaming cup of coffee on her. 

“Oh, Hannah, my words drove her 
away. I am all to blame.” 

To and fro, to and fro, over the oil- 
cloth, trailed the unhappy girl, her skirts 
washing the floor. 

“You to blame, Rose! Wasn’t you try- 
ing to advise her for good and her own 
soul? Don’t take on that way.” 


12 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


The supper that night, though a sub- 
stantial meal, was a dreary one. 

“I have now made up my mind to go 
to the city. I meant to go before Babbie 
ran away, but I was not certain; her 
action has decided mine. I have a bit 
of my school money left. It was lucky 
I saved that from the last term I taught. 
But I’ll teach school no more. It is too 
much of a ‘kiss-me’ job. If you know no- 
thing and have influence, you will get a 
school; if you are a genius and haven’t 
some politician to back you, you may 
wait till you are gray for a situation. I 
shall work in the city. Perhaps I may 
find Babbie.” 

As Rose finished speaking, she glanced 
into her coffee cup, thus giving her sister 
time to wipe the tears shyly from her 
eyes. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER. 

No one was very much surprised, when 
Babbie Conway eloped with Conrad 
Miller. 

“ Just like Babbie Conway,” commen- 
ted old Mrs. Dormer, who knew her well. 
“She was always a flighty piece, that 
same Babbie, and always doing things she 
hadn’t ought to do, ever since a yard 
would make a petticoat for her; not a 
bit like her sister, Hannah or Rose. Her 
father ought to be glad to get rid of her.” 

And so saying, Mrs. Dormer left the 
fence over which she and her neighbor, 
Mrs. Sharp, had been holding a bit of 
critical conversation. 

But Babbie’s father was not so “glad 
to get rid of her.” 

Evening was coming on. The wind was 
blowing a gale, and roaring in the chim- 
ney as only winter wind can roar. Now 
and then, the clap of a gate or stable 
door could be heard above the howling 
of the blast. The snow-clad mountains 


14 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


were in sharp contrast to the black sky; 
they looked like white clouds drawn on a 
slate . 

Hannah Conway, with a downcast 
countenance, was mending a worn drill- 
ing smock-frock belonging to her father — 
a garment in the winter of its existence. 
As industrious as Tabitha, she sewed 
on. She sat close to the window, with a 
lamp near her . 

Her father was lacing up his stout 
shoes— a man upon whose head the snows 
of age had calmly fallen, and whose clean 
conscience and kind heart looked from his 
hazel eyes. 

“Hannah,” he said, with a little stamp 
of his foot, after he had tied the second 
lace, “we might as well set in to supper.” 

The girl quietly arose, laid her mending 
across the top of the old-fashioned sewing 
machine, and poured out coffee for her 
father and herself. Then she brought 
forth a pudding in her favorite china dish, 
on which blossomed, violent and flaring, 
immense scarlet flowers. 

“I’m wondering, Hannah, where the 
little one is to-night. Wh at a bitter cold 
night it is! Oh, if I thought that Babbie 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


15 


was suffering from the wind and snow, 
I’d — but no, she is not, else she’d come 
back to me. 

“Gone two months,” he continued, in 
a soliloquizing way, as he poured the 
steaming coffee into his saucer, “and only 
a few lines from her, to let me know that 
she is really married. I feel that she 
ain’t happy. Maybe it would have been 
well for my poor, pretty little Babbie, 
had she died when her mother did. 

“Hannah, Babbie’s cradle and her 
mother’s grave was prepared at the same 
time; a shroud and a christening dress 
was got ready. Ah, it was hard; the 
baby, not an hour of life behindst her; 
the mother, not an hour of life before. 
I dreamt about her last night, me poor 
little girl, who was christened in her 
mother’s tears, before ever the holy bap- 
tism water touched her.” 

The old man brushed a tear from his 
eye. 

“Still it is a blessing Rose goes to see 
her, though she won’t say nothing in her 
letters about how my little girl and her 
man get along together.” 

“It will all be right yet, pap. I feel 


16 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


that our Babbie will return to us. Con- 
rad Miller won’t make a kind husband 
for Babbie, and when he turns mean to 
her, she will come back to you and me. 
That’s consolation . ” 

“Oh, my poor foolish little girl! I 
never thought, when her and Rose quar- 
reled that night, she would run off with 
such a man as Conrad Miller. Rose was 
for her good, Hannah, Rose was for her 
good. She didn’t want her to marry the 
man — God forgive me for hating him! — 
’cause he’s got such terrible bad habits. 

“Why, Hannah dear, I saw him take his 
old mother by the hair of her head, and 
drag her round and round, just one month 
afore she died. I tell you, he felt the 
weight of my knuckles that day. And 
such a drunkard as he is! Oh, Babbie, 
Babbie!” the old man sighed. “I wish 
to God your mother had taken you with 
her.” 

Hannah tried to bring her feelings un- 
der control. With tact, she turned the 
subject. 

“Take another piece of that steak, pap. 
You must eat it all. To-morrow’s Fri- 
day, so you’ll have no meat for a whole 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


17 


day. Eat it; you need something to 
keep you strong and hearty.” 

With pleasant chat, she took up his 
attention during the remainder of the 
evening . 

When the father and daughter knelt 
down to recite the rosary together, the 
old man’s thoughts turned to his young- 
est child. 

“Pray to God, Hannah, that she won’t 
lose her faith, daughter. She was never 
overly pious, and now having such a man 
as Conrad Miller ’long with her, maybe 
she will throw aside what little piety she 
has.” 

After the father had gone to bed, and 
Hannah was alone in the tidy kitchen, 
she burst into tears. 

“Oh Father in heaven,” she sobbed, 
“be merciful to our little one! O mam, 
mam, if you’d only a lived! I know 
you’re afore the throne of God; pray for 
the little one you gave up your own life 
for.” 

Hannah Conway was hardly four years 
older than her sister, yet she called her 
“the little one.” 

Sixteen years before, Mrs. Conway had 


18 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


died in giving her third child birth. 
When the dimness of death had gathered 
over the mother’s eyes, and she could no 
longer see the face of her babe, she laid 
the child in her husband’s arms. 

“You’ll be good to her, I know, Peter, 
for her mam’s sake. Hannah will grow 
up, and be a mother to my little darling. 
Call her Babbie after me, Peter, then 
you’ll think oftener of the Babbie that’s 
made your home what it is.” 

And Hannah indeed was always a 
mother to Babbie. 

Perhaps Babbie did not really love 
Conrad Miller; but that her father and 
sister Rose objected to her noticing such 
a man, had been sufficient stimulus to 
the giddy girl to flirt with him. How- 
ever, be it told that Conrad Miller was 
handsome and winning enough to turn 
the head of a wiser and older woman 
than Babbie Conway. 

Now he and she had been gone from 
Farringdon for two months. 

Peter Conway was trudging home 
through the snow. He had changed in 
those two months. Two months ! Could 
eternity be longer? His hair had a few 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


19 


more threads of gray in it, his face had 
more lines of care. Crunch! Crunch! his 
big nailed boots pounded down the snow. 

A little cry, hardly louder than a snow- 
bird’s. He turned to see a slender girl 
standing knee-deep in the freezing white- 
ness, with her hands held piteously out 
to him. 

That face, those appealing eyes, those 
outstretched hands! Was this his dream 
of last night? The girl was out of breath ; 
she had been running to catch up with 
him. 

A second Peter Conway paused, only 
a second ; for he saw that she was sway- 
ing and would fall. Then she was in his 
big arms, and crushed to his breast; her 
white face against his bearded dirty cheek; 
her small hands about his coal-dusty neck. 
A moment of heaven’s own bliss for both. 

He spoke first. 

“Little one, you’ve come back to stay 
with ole dad.” 

“Forever and ever, never to leave him 
again!” was her murmured reply. 

No reproaches from him; she had not 
expected them. She hung on his arm as 
they walked slowly home in happy silence. 


20 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Then she broke into speech : 

“Pap, pap, I have been justly punish- 
ed, but cruelly wronged; wronged by the 
man who was my husband; abused and 
beaten by the one who should have pro- 
tected and loved me. In one of his drunk- 
en sprees, he left me for dead upon the 
floor. The running away was a novelty, 
and on that account attractive. A girl 
did that in a novel I read, and I want- 
ed to be like her.” 

“But, little one, he did not beat you 
often — only once?” 

“He beat me every time he got drunk, 
and that was every other day.” 

“Why didn’t you leave him, and come 
to me at once?” 

“Pride kept me away.” 

“But you have come.” 

“Yes, since death took him out of the 
world. I never loved him, though once 
I thought I did. I should have died, 
were it not for Sister Rose.” 

“Did you go to her?” 

“Go to her! I was too proud for that. 
When I wouldn’t come home to you, pap, 
you might know I wouldn’t go to Rose, 
gentle and loving as she is, dear girl. No, 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


21 


we met by accident — at least, she 
said it was by accident — but I think she 
had been hunting for me. She saw how 
careworn I was, and she came to my 
wretched house in a back street. 

“O, daddy dear, God made the coun- 
try, and man made the town. You 
ought to have seen the wretched house 
in a back street we lived in. Our little 
home up here is a palace, for we get the 
sun. 

“Rose petted me so that I broke down, 
and told her all. I made her solemnly 
promise that she wouldn’t say a word 
to you about my misery. She brought us 
clothes and victuals, and tried, the dear 
saint, to make a Christian of my hus- 
band. I thought her heart would break, 
she cried so, the night he died. His 
death frightened even me, bad as I am, 
for he died like a dog. It was his drink 
that killed him. Drunk, he cut his hand 
with window glass, while trying to strike 
me; blood-poisoning corrupted his whole 
system! God forgive me, I could hardly 
pity him.” 

“Babbie!” 

“You know, pap dear, I am not like 


22 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Rose or Hannah. A spitfire, bitter, spite- 
ful, hating more strongly than loving, 
and — ” 

“You’re too hard on yourself, child; you 
ain’t like that.” 

“My shoulders were black and blue 
the night Conrad died, pap; that may 
excuse my bitterness.” 

“And you so little, so much of a baby, 
Babbie. I’m sure the angels must a 
kept that news from your mam, else 
heaven wouldn’t be heaven for her. But 
why didn’t you write, and I’d have brought 
you home, though it cost me my last cent.” 

“I did write, wrote three letters, and 
tried to write a dozen more, but every 
one of them I destroyed. Why should 
my misery become your misery? Doubt 
were better for you than that; and I just 
couldn’t write lies to you.” 

“Off goes those black duds of yours 
to-night, and with them goes the memory 
of Conrad Miller. The past is past, 
Babbie, and what’s done can’t be undone, 
but it kin be forgot. You’re my own 
little girl again, and that wedding ring 
you kin wear for others, but you’re just 
plain Babbie Conway to me.” 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


23 


Mrs. Sharp ran over to Mrs. Dormer’s. 
Mrs. Sharp wore a hermaphrodite cos- 
tume — her husband’s coat over her wrap- 
per, under which conspicuous were her 
husband’s shoes. 

“Kin you believe it!” she burst out. 
“I thought I’d split afore I got over to 
tell you. Babbie Conway’s just gone up 
the road, hanging on her pap’s arm, the 
bold young divil. I got a glimpse of 
them as they went by. I guess she 
knows be this time that she flew off 
with a wolf, and she’s glad to have her 
old faithful father to luk after her. Conrad 
Miller ain’t with her, but she has a wed- 
ding ring on. I took notice to that, you 
kin bet. But maybe she bought the 
ring, and put it on herself. There’s no 
telling.” 

“That there ain’t,” said Mrs. Dormer, 
turning the steak in the frying pan, and 
rubbing the end of her nose. “She’s a 
stray duck, that damsel. How in the 
name of common sense, did she ever get 
into the Conway family; all of them 
fine men and women, and her a limb of 
Satin. Hannah’s a model girl, and so is 
Rose, and the old man would miss his 


24 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Sunday dinner afore he would miss his 
Mass. But there is a bad egg in every 
dozen, I guess.” 

“I know what’s wrong,” returned Mrs. 
Sharp, sniffing, for the steak smelt good. 
“She was born under an unlucky star. 
Sure, wasn’t old Mrs. Kelly in the 
room when she came into the world 
— sorry day for poor Mrs. Conway, God 
rest her! — and she looked out at the 
stars. ‘O God, deliver us from evil,’ 
says she, howling. ‘If that child’s a 
boy, he will hang for murder, and if it’s 
a girl, you will curse the day she was 
born.’ ‘Shut your prating tongue,’ says 
the doctors, furious mad. ‘You’re out 
of your senses, woman. Sich talk would 
do among pagans, but can’t be toler- 
ated among people that call theirselves 
Christians.’ 

“And wasn’t Mrs. Kelly right? Was 
there ever a bigger divil than Babbie, 
little as she is? I wonder her folks have 
a thing to do with her. But I guess 
they know her better than we do,” she 
added, softening, “and maybe there is 
good in her. Every one should luk at 
home, for it is easy to see the mope in 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


25 


our neighbor’s eye, when we can’t see 
the bean in our own.” 

Mrs. Dormer turned her face towards 
Mrs. Sharp, a face like a dough cake, the 
only expression being around the mouth. 
To judge from her figure, Mrs. Dormer 
had dined largely off suet pudding, and 
most of it had entered into her make- 
up. 

“What a good woman you are at 
heart, Mrs. Sharp!” said she, in a squeaky 
voice. “Always giving the divil his due, 
and never columbiating. Sure, how do 
we know but Conrad Miller hyptonized 
the poor child.” 

Mrs. Sharp tapped her foot on the 
floor with pleasure at the compliment, 
and thus brought that member into 
more conspicuous notice. If her heart 
were as big and broad as her foot, then 
indeed should she be an angel of charity. 

But Babbie was at her father’s gate. 
A face appeared first at the window, 
then at the door — a homely face re- 
sembling Peter Conway’s very closely. 
Then Babbie was lying on the bosom 
of her sister, the only mother’s bosom 
she had ever known. 


26 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“Welcome back, welcome back a thou- 
sand times!” said a loving girl’s voice. 
“It ain’t no home when you ain’t here.” 


CHAPTER III. 


HER SISTER’S BETROTHED. 

“Hannah, there, don’t waste time peel- 
ing the potatoes. Throw them into the 
pot with their jackets on; a physician 
told me the best part of the potato is 
nearest the skin. I will strip off their 
duds when they are boiled, and then they 
may appear in the altogether, or in the 
nude, for supper. Meanwhile, you and 
I can run upstairs, and I will do your 
hair.” 

Hannah, very much flurried, tossed the 
tubers into the water, clapped the pot on 
the stove, pushed the steaming coffee to 
the back of the range, and then made a 
dive for the staircase leading to her bed- 
room. 

In advance of her was Babbie, a vision 
of girlish beauty, in a pink dress with 
lace and ribbons, her dark hair unbraided 
and loosely fastened with a pink ribbon 
at the back of her head. 

Babbie plumped Hannah down into a 
rocker, and with swift, deft fingers took 


28 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


little wads of paper out of her hair. 

Scraps of poetry, news items, bits of 
fiction were on the papers, which made 
no mean pile on the bureau. What 
cared Hannah for the weary heads 
which had been broken over those syn- 
dicate verses, of the jaded novelist’s 
fingers which had clicked off that “best 
seller” by the light of the midnight oil? 

With delighted eyes, she was watching 
the mirror, where Babbie’s little fingers 
were gathering up and bunching crinkled 
hair into waves along the temples, and 
a mound upon the poll. 

“Babbie, ain’t you got the knack of 
doing things!” squeaked the happy girl, 
as her sister pushed a glass beaded comb 
into the back locks. “Glory be, I look 
five years younger. Won’t Ned be tickled 
to see me so!” 

Babbie was hustling Hannah into a 
tight-fitting calico dress, and looked, for 
all the world, like a gay little humming 
bird decking up a sober-featured sparrow. 

“Crack, there goes a button, Hannah! 
Don’t you dare to breathe till I have 
this waist hooked ! There you are. Now 
a pin. Stand over by the glass, and see 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


29 


if you can find room for improvement. 
No? Well, now a kiss. That’s it. 

“If Ned Higgins is not bewitched by you 
to-night, I shall consider him an owl 
that can’t bear the sunlight. You can 
sit up here if you like, and fall in love 
with that maid in the mirror, but I must 
run downstairs to set the table. Man 
is a carnivorous animal, and likes his 
meat done to a turn. A woman hasn’t 
much difficulty in getting to a man’s 
heart when his stomach is full; it gives 
her a kind of boost or stepping-stone. 
Now to feed the beast.” 

She skipped down the rickety stairs to 
the kitchen, followed by the laughing 
Hannah. 

“Babbie, you are wittier than an ac- 
tor.” 

Soon the table was covered with a 
snowy cloth, darned and patched care- 
fully. Cups and saucers merrily clicked; 
knives and folks and spoons jingled. 

Babbie took two mince pies out of the 
oven, lifted a knuckle of meat from the 
stove, and poured into a dish a heap of 
potatoes, their brown skins bursting. 
She swiftly had the tubers peeled, and 


30 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


lying in a pyramid, their faces and many 
pits making them look like blind Argu- 
ses — all eyes and no sight. 

Hannah went to the window and gazed 
out at the white landscape; at the trees, 
which had cast away their leafy garb, 
and adorned their branches with gleam- 
ing ice-gems; at the black old bake oven, 
which had laid a snowy veil upon its 
head. The lazy wind was wallowing a- 
mid the clinging flossy snow. A great 
white silence held the town. All the 
noises of the breaker and roads had been 
sheeted and blanketed and put to bed. 

She turned suddenly. 

“Here he is,” she exclaimed. 

Babbie made a wild dash for the 
stairs, bumping the table, and making 
the cups and spoons dance. 

“You meet him first, Hannah. Like 
the hero in a good old blood-and-thunder 
melodrama, I’ll pop up at the right 
moment.” 

Then she had flown to the room above. 

Hannah flung open the door, and 
from the snow-swept porch, a big ruddy- 
cheeked, blue- eyed man put his hand 
into her warm palms. She helped him 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


31 


off with his worn overcoat, and then set 
a chair for him comfortably before the 
fire. He rubbed his hands in the glow, 
and turned his candid eyes admiringly 
on her face. 

“Well, how is the girl to-night? She 
certainly looks good enough to eat. I 
don’t know what it is — maybe it’s the 
hair fixing — but you are stunning.” 

Hannah laughed gleefully, and told 
him he was like every other man — a 
flatterer, and was complimenting because 
his supper was ready and steaming. 

“You said I looked good enough to 
eat, as if I was a well boiled cabbage. 
Dominick Kennelly told his wife before 
he married her that he liked her well 
enough to gobble her up, and when she 
cast that up to him the other day, he 
said he wished to the Lord he had eat 
her, for then he would have peace.” 

“That’s it, Hannah. I like a girl with 
life in her. A joke before a meal is bet- 
ter than music at a banquet. You ain’t 
blue and low-spirited now.” 

“No; no more melancholies for me, 
Ned.” 

She laid her hands on his shoulders, 


32 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


and looked down into his upturned face. 

“O, Ned, I have such news. Babbie, 
my little sister, has come home to 
daddy and me. She is a widow. Oh, I 
know you will like her.” 

He turned his eyes from hers, and gaz- 
ed into the fire, where blue and yellow 
flames waltzed over the burning anthra- 
cite. 

“I heard she was home,” he said slowly. 
‘‘Just got a whisper of it to-day.” 

Hannah was slightly disappointed; he 
should have taken more kindly to 
Babbie. 

“But,” he added, looking about in re- 
lief, “she ain’t here to-night?” 

“Yes, she is. See, there are put on 
four places at the table — you and me, 
Babbie and daddy.” 

“Hannah,” his face was almost sullen, 
“don’t you go and git mad and offended 
at me, but I know I won’t like your 
sister. I ain’t never saw her, but I 
never could care for a bold woman, 
and — ” 

“She ain’t a bold woman, Ned 
Higgins.” 

“I don’t mean it in that way, Hannah, 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


33 


for I don’t want to hurt your feelings, 
not for this whole town. But that wo- 
man made you and your old daddy suf- 
fer, and I know that, for I seen the 
misery in your face. That’s why I don’t 
like her.” 

“She is so young, Ned, only sixteen, 
and she has suffered so much — so much.” 

Hannah’s voice died off in a squeak; 
she was quite ready to cry. 

“She deserved to suffer,” he retorted. 

“Oh, not the way she suffered. He 
used to beat her.” 

“Well, when a bold, giddy — ” 

“Ned!” 

“Forgive me again, Hannah; that slip- 
ped out. I meant to say that when a 
sheep runs off with a bear, she is going 
to get her wool pulled, and lose some of 
it; maybe a good deal, most all of it, till 
she is clean plucked bare.” 

He saw that he had hurt Hannah very 
keenly, and he tried to make amends. 
This woman was to be his future wife, 
and he could not permit himself to be 
unkind, though he must obey his con- 
science, and be just and truthful. 

“Do you think, Hannah, that Bab — 


34 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


I mean your sister — would mind me 
being here for supper?” 

“Yes, she would mind you; she would 
be glad to have you. She knows you are 
here, and in her heart she welcomes you. 
And I tell you, you are going to like her.” 

He grew stubborn. 

“But I tell you that I am not going 
to like her. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t 
let myself like her, though you may be 
certain I won’t hurt her feelings for your 
sake.” 

“And why won’t you like her?” 

He jumped from his seat, and went 
very close to her. He caught her hands 
and held them to his mighty chest, while 
his kind, handsome eyes looked tenderly 
into hers. 

“Why, because — because she made the 
dearest, best little girl in the world set 
up nights on nights, and cry her eyes 
out. Hannah, I ain’t been coming here 
without you knowing what a lot I think 
of you, and if any one hurts you, they hurt 
me, too. To see you suffer, and to know 
the one that makes you suffer, is to turn 
me again that one.” 

Hannah hardly knew whether to be 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


35 


pleased or not at his attitude; but she 
was happy to hear again that he loved 
her — her a woman with so little attrac- 
tion, he a man so good and upright and 
of such sterling character. A little rose 
came into each of her cheeks. Where 
is the woman that does not relish a com- 
pliment from the lips of the man she loves? 
Gently, without a word, but with a 
grateful smile, she drew her hands from 
his, and poured out the fragrant coffee, 
for she heard footsteps descending the 
staircase, whose door was open. 

Enter Peter Conway in Sunday make 
up and costume; a suit of black clothes, 
shiny with age; a collar that simply tor- 
tured his chin, a sort of voluntary 
penance, like an anchorite’s hair shirt; 
cuffs down to his knuckles, cuffs being 
ornaments he wore but seldom ; and 
shoes shined to a painful brilliancy. 
His honest face was glowing and red, as 
if from a too close shave. 

"Hello, Ned!” He smiled his genial 
broad smile. "I heard your voice. Iam 
dressed for the occasion, you see.” 

He wrung the young man’s hand. 

"This is all in honor of our supper and 


36 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


your meeting with Babbie. She will be 
down in a minute. I left her standing 
at the head of the stairs, and I never 
saw her eyes look so big and frightened; 
they were like moons. But I will call 
her.” 

“I think she must have heard us talk 
ing,” whispered Hannah. ‘‘I ought to 
have closed the stair door; upstairs you 
kin hear a whisper in the kitchen.” 

Higgins felt a qualm, such as he would 
have felt, had he trodden heedlessly upon 
a wounded butterfly or a dying little 
bird. 

In answer to Mr. Conway’s summons, 
there was a patter of swift little feet on 
the staircase, as if the owner were a 
criminal coming to receive her sentence, 
and running to keep up her courage. In 
swallow fashion, she skimmed into the 
kitchen. 

Higgins caught his breath with admira- 
tion. 

The slight, graceful form in pink had 
come upon his vision like a ray of pure 
light into a dusky room, or like the 
morning spreading upon a gloomy 
mountain. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


37 


In a second, he was looking into the 
lustrous night of a pair of dark eyes 
which would have melted a Blue Beard; 
at a small, well shaped head, encircled 
with a crown of many shadowed hair; 
at a face with cheeks like roses in the 
snow — a face which from that moment 
he never forgot. He had called her a 
woman; she was but a bud opening into 
womanhood, but the rosy dawn of a 
woman. 

“Babbie, this is Hannah’s intended 
husband, Ned Higgins,” Higgins heard 
the father say. 

Like a candid, fearless boy, the love- 
ly creature put her hand into his, and he 
felt his strong fingers close tenderly and 
delicately on the dainty mite of warm 
helplessness. 

“I am glad to know you,” she said, 
simply, yet graciously, “and I congrat- 
ulate you on having won our Hannah. 
Oh, Mr. Higgins, she is such a woman.” 

Her self-possession confused him; and 
just then he felt like the man in the 
dark room looking for the black hat 
which was not there. 

“Yes — yes — s — Miss — I — I,” he stut- 
tered. 


38 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Then she laughed, just a bird’s note 
or two down deep in her little throat. 

“Never mind,” she said; “it is all right. 
Tell that to Hannah. By the way, up- 
stairs I heard every word you said.” 

Her voice had just a suggestion of 
seriousness. He started, and another wave 
of confusion swept toward him, but her 
amiable smile was reassuring. 

“You know,” she continued, “in this 
old house, with its unplastered ceilings, 
sound travels so, and the stair door was 
open. I played eavesdropper in listening, 
and eavesdroppers never hear pleasant 
things about themselves. But,” there 
was now song-like pleading in her voice, 
“I want you and me to be good friends. 
I ask you to stay for supper now and 
try to care for me a wee bit ; try to make 
yourself believe you care. You know I 
never had a brother, and Hannah is going 
to give me a big grown-up brother at 
last. Won’t you be my brother for 
Hannah’s sake?” 

A hand, a typical miner’s hand, spread 
and broadened and hardened from toil, 
with blue scars on the knuckles and 
fingers, and nails broken and rough — 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


39 


spontaneously such a hand flew out and 
grasped with genuine heartiness Babbie’s 
little fingers. 

“Consider me your brother from 
now on, not only for Hannah’s sake, but 
for your own.” 

Then he got confused again. 

And simple Hannah was supremely 
happy. 


CHAPTER IV. 


WHERE’ER I CAME, I BROUGHT 
CALAMITY. 

Asa Robinson’s motives for coming to 
Farrington were various. He meant to 
spend a vacation, write up for his editor 
anything of interest, have as much fun 
as possible, and make love to mine 
beauties . 

So far things had gone very smoothly 
for him. He had dropped but yesterday 
into old Mrs. Kelly’s store, and now car- 
ried in his pocket the pencil draft of a 
sketch about her visit to Pittsburgh and 
New York. He laughed as he read and 
re-read her words: 

“Sure, you couldn’t see yourself afront 
of you. As soon as I got to me daugh- 
ter’s, says I, ‘For heaven’s sake, Nora, 
give us a basin till I wash. And say no 
word to me about Pittsburgh . ’ 

“No, no, I won’t forget me trip to New 
York neither. Me husband died just two 
years and a month afore Kitty and her man 
went there to live. I set out to see her . 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


41 


She was living across from the Metro- 
politan Opera House, in rooms. Sure, I 
never thought that people could live as 
high up as she did! 

“That evening wasn’t I setting be the 
winda looking down into the street, and 
says I to Kitty: ‘What if a fire should 
break out, Kitty, what would become of 
us?’ Kitty says something about ‘no dan- 
ger of that,’ and went into another room. 
Just then a blaze of light lit up the street. 
Sure, I was on me feet in an instant. 
Throwing up a winda, I screeched ‘Fire!’ 
to the top of me lungs. I felt that me 
life wasn’t worth a pinch of snuff to me 
then, for I never could jump to the street 
below . 

“In comes Kitty like a streak, and pulls 
me from the winda. Mother, for heav- 
en’s sake, come from the winda. It’s 
not a fire; it’s the lights on the top of 
the Opera House just lit up.’ And sure, 
that’s all it was. Of course, I laughed 
meself, but wat a fright they had give 
me! 

“That wasn’t the finish of me frights, 
for next day Kitty took me to Coney Is- 
land, and then to a monkey garden 


42 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


called ‘The Chew,' whatever that means. 
We went to a neat little depot, and went 
into it. As we sat there a short while, 
looking at the people coming in, me cu- 
riosity got the better of me, and leaning 
over, says I to Kitty, soft-like: ‘Where’s 
the rails for the trains to come on?’ I 
was used to ride on trains here in Far- 
ringdon, you know. Afore Kitty could 
answer, an awful thing occurred — away 
went the depot with me! 

“‘O glory be to God!’ I screeched, 
jumping to me feet. ‘What has happen- 
ed to the depot?’ I felt sure that the river 
was busted, and I was done for; that the 
city was being swept away wid one of 
them floods I’d read about. 

“ ‘Hush, mother,’ says Kitty, ‘you’re 

not in a depot; it’s a ferryboat you’re 
r > 1 
on . 

Robinson, as he read the article, was 
sitting under a tree not a rod away from 
the railroad. Beyond the tracks rushed 
a huge stream of water, that had been 
much swollen by the recent heavy rains. 
A long narrow plank swung across the 
torrent. 

Chancing to raise his eyes, he saw a 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


43 


girl of exquisite beauty placing one dainty 
foot on this makeshift bridge. For a sec- 
ond he stared at the graceful little fig- 
ure, then jumped to his feet and cried 
out: 

“Don’t risk that board ; I tried to cross 
it, and failed. You will go down into 
the stream!” 

The girl laughed saucily, and took a 
long daring step upon the plank. An- 
other, then she paused in the center, and 
tossed back a strand of loose hair. The 
newspaper man was bewitched and fright- 
ened. But she reached the railroad in 
safety . 

“As light and sure-footed as a fairy 
of the Alps, so light her tread that, Ca- 
milla-like, she might run over that creek’s 
surface without sinking, or skim over that 
grass merely dimpling it, but not bending 
its blades,” he muttered to himself, as 
she came nearer to him . 

“And the beauty! I’ll wager she is a 
somebody up here to spend the summer, 
and go back to Nature. Wonderful 
black eyes, bright as a wave- washed onyx ; 
hair dark and glossy; an oval, pink-tinted 
face. That hair loose about her neck 


44 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


and shoulders, if so charming in disorder, 
what must it be when arranged! Such a 
mouth as hers one is not satisfied with 
merely seeing. An inviting eye, and yet 
methinks right modest.” 

The girl was too close for him to have 
time for further thought. She laughed 
like a merry boy . 

“Your fears were groundless,” she said, 
“though the creek is misbehaving sadly. 
Usually it is a quiet snake which creeps a- 
way silently, but to-day it has become a 
roaring bull, and runs madly amuck.” 

Her manner told him she was of the 
coal country ;so much freedom and famili- 
arity without boldness. 

“But it was kind of you to warn me,” 
she added. 

“I am a stranger here,” he said, with 
the hope of more conversation. 

“I have heard of you,” she replied, 
“and have seen you often, though you 
may not have noticed me. But I am 
one of the many girls of Farringdon, while 
you are the only newspaper writer from 
Philadelphia . There is a halo of romance 
about you. You see Farringdon is a vil- 
lage, and in a village everybody knows 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


45 


everybody else’s business. A stranger, 
as you are, is discovered as soon as he puts 
his foot within Farringdon. Old Mrs. 
Kelly, who is somewhat of a cynic, once 
said that ‘if you wanted to find out the 
poperlation of this here town, come into 
the place on a train ; one-half of the resi- 
denters would be at the depot to see you 
getting off thecar,andthe other half would 
be hanging out the winders. 

He wondered how he could have missed 
seeing such a face as hers . He found new 
beauty in her even as she talked and 
smiled. 

Those strong little teeth of hers, 
not a spot on them; not a line in her 
face; hardly a freckle. No make-up a- 
bout this lovely little vision. She was 
even en deshabille; her hair carelessly 
caught at the nape of her neck ; her wrap- 
per slightly soiled from housework, and a 
tiny neat patch showing on the skirt. She 
had doubtless taken this short cut, and 
to escape observation, come through the 
huge rock and slate banks, which, like 
haughty Ethiop beauties, towered in ma- 
jestic splendor, ablaze in the sun with bits 
of sulphur stone and pieces of coal. 


46 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“Mrs. Kelly, your store-keeper, and I 
are friends,” he said, “and she has spoken 
to me about most of Farringdon’s girls. 
Surely she must have mentioned you.” 

He studied her peach-bloom complexion, 
there in the glare of the sun, which would 
have routed a la belle Otero, and sent 
Liane de Pougy scurrying to her gas- 
lighted salon. 

“I am certain that she did, and made 
no complimentary mention of me. She 
likes my sisters, but I am not so for- 
tunate as to have her esteem. I played 
a joke on her one time, and she has 
never forgiven me. She likes to joke at 
the expense of others, but woe betide 
the one who has a joke at her ex- 
pense.” 

“May I ask what the joke was?” 

He was eager to have the conversation 
continued. 

“Oh, it wasn’t very much. Mrs. Kelly 
had an old gray horse that was a real thorn 
in the side to her. He was always and 
ever running away. She declared her 
eyes were crooked with watching him. 
Early one morning I chanced into her 
store and found one of my friends there. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


47 


“‘My,’ said I wickedly to my friend, 
‘I got a fright as I came down. A gray 
horse raced like mad up the road, and 
took to the bush.’ 

“Mrs. Kelly hears everything, either 
directly or indirectly, and I knew she 
was eavesdropping, as my friend and I 
chatted. 

“ ‘Where is the horse? Out there yet?’ 
and Mrs. Kelly made a dash from behind 
the counter, knocked down a can of corn 
upon her foot, and sped out into the road. 

“ ‘This is the first of April,’ said I ;‘April’ 
fool, Mrs. Kelly,’ and I ran, while she 
roared after me calling me a dirty de- 
ciever.’ She has never liked me 
since.” 

A tall, broad-shouldered young chap, 
with light hair, had come up the rail- 
road. The girl’s back was turned to him. 
Robinson saw the fellow’s blue eyes blaze 
with jealousy, and noticed his lips drawn 
tightly together. The reporter at once 
droped the lover-like air he had assumed, 
as the maiden talked on. He wanted 
no tussle with that brawny miner. 

“Hasn’t Mrs. Kelly said any thing a- 
bout Babbie Conway?” asked the girl. 


48 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Babbie Conway! The newspaper man 
opened his eyes. Mrs. Kelly had given 
him a volume of this girl’s escapades . 
The Babbie Conway he had fancied was 
a bold-faced vixen, with bold black eyes 
which sought for admiration ; bold red lips, 
bold black eyebrows — an ugly, bad man- 
nered duckling, nothing like this lovely 
swan. So much for Mrs. Kelly’s descrip- 
tion. Why, this little dimpled thing be- 
fore him was only a child, not more 
than sixteen years old, if even that. There 
was in her face the innocence of the child, 
blended with the sauciness of the mad- 
cap. 

This was the girl who ran away, and 
married a rakish, good-for-nothing fellow, 
and dogged him into his grave. This the 
brazen hussy who scandalized everybody 
by riding pellmell through the village on 
the back of a mule. 

This the girl who, on a hot day, with 
another daring girl like herself, walked 
into a swimming dam, clothes and all, 
and came out “like a drownded rat.” 

This the girl who drubbed her sister 
Hannah, and had her “so cowed that 
Hannah was afraid to say boo.” This 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


49 


the girl who used to play marbles like a 
boy, and who used to cheat shamefully in 
the game. 

This the bold-face who, finding a huge 
black snake coiled about a bird’s nest, fled 
not nor shrieked, but seized a long switch 
and beat the reptile to death. 

A ringing laugh from Babbie. He 
thought he had never heard such a laugh. 
It rippled from her throat like the song of 
a nightingale, and there was such a ring 
of genuine merriment in it. 

“Are you afraid of me?” she quizzed. 
“Mrs. Kelly told you what I am.” 

“The old villain is a — I mean she lied.” 
he returned. 

“Doubtless, she told some truth,” said 
Babbie. 

The jealous-eyed man had now come 
close, and stood pounding down with his 
heels the yellow-circled dandelions. A bee 
was luxuriating in a wild flower’s breezy 
tent, “his conquered Sybaris,” when the 
big man’s broad foot sent him buzzing to 
the poppies which grow by the River 
Lethe. 

As the girl turned, and flashed him a 
bright look, his face softened as if a 


50 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


mellow light had been shed upon it. She 
bowed to Robinson, and walked away with 
the big fellow, after saluting him with a 
pleasant “Hello, Ned!” while Robinson 
cursed inwardly. 

“Whoever he is, and, Jingo, he is well 
made, he’s deep in love with that chic 
little bit of an angel,” mused the reporter. 

“Strange, strange, passing strange. Tiny 
Cupid is riding that lion. Venus, how 
great is thy power! That slim little girl 
could swing that big chap around her 
finger, grant though he is a terror of the 
woods. Strange, strange. Samson, I’ll 
avow, was no bigger than that fellow, but 
then Delilah was no handsomer than that 
lassie. Why, that bear of a miner could 
span that girl’s waist with his hand, yet 
she is more powerful than he. The weak 
confounds the strong. La Pucelle 
d’Orleans puts to flight the mailed soldier. 

“Yet who can blame him? She has a 
wicked little twinkle in her eye that shows 
she is of the earth earthy. I wonder 
what dad would say if I walked into him 
with that hardy, beautiful mountain lau- 
rel under my arm! He would go mad a- 
bout her, for dad has lots of the boy in 
him yet. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


51 


“And,” he said aloud, “that is the girl 
whom, according to Mrs. Kelly, the 
village calls^ill-starred . ’ ’ 


CHAPTER V. 


A STRIKER’S DAYDREAM. 

Solitude sat spreading its dusky wings 
over Farringdon. The long-dreaded, 
much-feared strike was on. 

Silence. Silent the once busy breakers, 
that stood huge giants against the summer 
sky. The windows, like so many 
wondering eyes, reflected the sunlight, 
and stared vacantly out of the town. 
Silent and dead the once shrill voices of 
the boiler houses; silent and still the 
blacksmith shops; silent and motionless 
the long lines of worn, dirty mine cars; 
silent and still the old fan that mused on 
its once active life. The very sulphur 
creek seemed to hush its voice as it glided 
and gurgled along, and mourned in the 
deepest black. Silence on everything. 

The miners were carrying from the 
underground dungeons their tools — no 
easy matter, for the tools were of the 
hardest, heaviest metal. 

An old white-haired miner was 
climbing over a coal bank to reach his 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


53 


home. He bore on his right shoulder 
drills, a boring machine, a weighty 
hammer, and a mining needle. As he 
climbed the steep bank, he seemed like 
Sisyphus; only, the miner carried his 
burden, and did not roll it up the in- 
cline. 

A young Apollo had flung down his 
saw, hatchet, hammer, and gimlet on the 
dusty wooden bridge, and was leaning 
over the railing, looking to the west. 

His bold, bright eyes saw a railroad 
winding for a monotonous mile along a 
filthy creek and along banks of cinders, 
ashes, and culm. In the distance, green 
woods outlined ; with far away, a village 
built like a nest on the mountain side. 
But his mind was not on those things. 

He took off his oily, tight-fitting cap, 
pulled the leaky, greasy mine-lamp from 
it, and tossed the little teapot-like torch 
down into the creek, which swallowed 
it at a gulp. 

That lamp had been his friend for 
years. Often in the black diamond cata- 
combs, he had blessed its rushlight 
flame — a flame more welcome than the 
mild rays of the moon, or the bright 


54 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


beams of the sun. But the little lamp’s 
days of service were over, and like all 
worn-out things, it had to go. It would 
never see the interior of a mine again, 
nor would the feeble old man tottering 
up the bank. Both had had their day. 

The broad-chested, strong-necked 
young giant on the bridge, however, was 
not reflecting on decay and death. 
Those thoughts are for the old and the 
care-laden. 

His countenance was flooded with a 
brightness which not even the morning 
sun could cause — a brightness which his 
yellow locks served to heighten, but a 
brightness his face would have worn, 
though he were still in the bowels of 
the mine, where darkness made its 
home. 

He had before his mind’s eye a slim 
fairy of a girl, whose childhood still 
lingered on her brow; whose mischievous 
black eyes sparkled out through a veil 
of raven tresses, like stars shining 
through a cloud; whose mouth was small 
and pleading and quivering, as if already 
she had tasted sorrow. 

A salad bird flew by him, and as he 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


55 


followed it with his eyes, the girl 
seemed to be embodied in that tiny 
feathered form, like the princess of a 
fairy tale; she was something he could 
love and reverence and desire, but could 
never have. Could never have! who 
should say that? 

“Heigh, Higgins, quit your mooning!” 
said a teasing voice, and a friendly miner 
laid down his tools by those of the 
Apollo. “That’s the way with youse 
kids in love — always seeing her face in 
the skies, or in the weather, if it 
doesn’t happen to be stormy. Don’t 
you think you had better git home and 
washed; call off this dreaming, and see 
the girl herself? Hannah Conway ain’t 
a girl what wants to be fixed up and 
painted and dinkied out for her 
beau. You are welcome any time with 
her.” 

Ned Higgins choked down a sigh. 
He clapped his cap on his streaming 
yellow locks, opened his shirt at the 
throat and chest, to let the air play on 
his breast, smiled his good-natured smile, 
and tried to enjoy his chum’s conver- 
sation. 


56 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


But he had rather have been alone 
just then. And he had not been 
thinking of Hannah Conway. 

The miner had cruelly destroyed for 
Higgins a glimpse of heaven, as a breeze 
breaks up the visionary clouds and sky 
in the motionless water. 


CHAPTER VI. 


MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN. 

There were sad hearts at Farringdon, 
and eyes red with weeping. Today the 
men were receiving their last pay. Only 
God knew when they would receive an- 
other. 

It was a dreary outlook; a long, dry, 
weary desert of suffering, and at the end 
the gaunt wolf of hunger standing with 
his lean jaws open. 

On the mountain side stood an old 
woman, with wild gray hair, sunken eyes, 
ringed with red, leaden lips, and thin face, 
covered with dust-colored skin, drawn so 
tight as to show her cheek bones — a 
horror of eyes and skin and bone. 

She had a scanty bunch of herbs in 
her talon-like fingers, and perched on a 
huge stone, she was looking down into 
the valley. 

She seemed famine personified, gloat- 
ing over the coal mine town — a fearful 
harpy that had snatched from unhappy 
Lazarus and his babes their last morsel — a 


58 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


harpy sent by Dives to collect his tithes, 
and bring the revenues to his sumptuous 
palaces, that he might entertain his blase 
guests for an hour. 

Near this Hecate on the mountain 
side, a goat was staring through gro- 
tesque bushes down at the miners’ home — 
a very satyr. 

Many of the men were about to set 
out for distant parts that night or on 
the morrow. The cheapest mode of 
conveyance was to be used — the freights 
and coal trains. 

More than one mother’s heart was 
throbbing with pain as the thought of the 
many dangers presented itself. 

More than one lone woman sat sob- 
bing and moaning before the old family 
album, as she looked at a boyish counte- 
nance in its pages. 

Many a delicate girl face was worn 
with weeping, as she sat alone, so much 
alone, in her bedroom. 

Most of the men who were to leave 
Farringdon, and go to seek their fortune 
in distant cities, were tingling with the 
anticipation of new scenes, with the hope, 
too, of money to be wrested by hard 
labor from the miserly rich. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


59 


Many of those healthy, handsome faces 
came back later, drawn, tired and thin. 
Some of those faces were never seen a- 
gain . Others came home to Farringdon 
wearing the cold mask of death. 

Exposure, hunger, disease, midnight 
rides on box-cars in the chilly air, with 
the dews falling thick and fast — all these 
ate into the stout, manly hearts of the 
miners, gone out into the unknown world, 
and poisoned in those hearts the rich 
red stream of life. 

There was little drinking done at the 
taverns that pay-day. From one small 
saloon floated upon the summer air the 
wild, rough eloquence of Dominick 
Kennedy, a burly fellow, as he en- 
couraged with a fiery harangue the tepid 
hearts of some of his fellow strikers. 

Meg Kennedy, Dominick’s wife, was 
sitting in the little cemetery by a silent 
grave, the sweet air blowing unheeded 
upon her colorless face. At times a 
paroxysm of grief would throw her upon 
the little mound, and she would bury 
her hard, strong fingers in the dirt. Her 
only child was lying there. 

Some of the men, those were fathers, 


60 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


had a desperate look in their eyes ; others, 
those were boys, had the light of daring 
and adventure in theirs. Some eyes, those 
were women’s, had dull despair in them ; 
some, those were girls’, hate and bitter- 
ness. 


CHAPTER VII. 


GREEK MEETS GREEK. 

Mrs. Dormer and Mrs. Sharp were at 
the fence again, holding critical conver- 
sation . 

“The men is liable to do anything,” 
said Mrs. Dormer vaguely. “There’s a 
carload of them rotten scabs come to- 
night, to run the washery, but they 
better look after their skins. They don’t 
know, cows that they are, that we know 
they’re coming.” 

“I hope that our men won’t kill them; 
only give ’em a blamed good thrashing. 
Ugh, anything but murder. Do you 
know, it looks blue for that newspaper 
fella that is staying at Betty Downing’s 
hotel. Robinson is his name; the low 
cub, I can’t remember his first name, 
for it’s something outlandish. He wrote 
things about the miners that they 
didn’t like, and he drawed some cartoons 
of the miners that weren’t true. And 
the face of him to stay right here among 
us! But his goose is cooked, I’m afeard. 


62 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“Besides, he has got Mrs. Kelly on his 
back. He put a couple of pieces in the 
paper about her, and you know she can’t 
bear to have her name in print, let alone 
have fun poked at her. She gives him a 
plucking every time any one goes into her 
store and she will be getting that buck 
into trouble, take me word for it. You 
can’t blame her. Wait till I give you a 
bit of what the city paper has to-day. ” 

And Mrs . Sharp read : 

“Mrs. Kelly continued her narrative . 
It is a delight to hear her talk. ‘I at- 
tended the funeral of poor Maria Ford 
this morning. When the dear soul was 
laying in her coffin, looking for all the 
world like a saint — though she ain’t 
none — in sails that loose-tongued old 
Nancy Cook, who is dumber nor a mule. 
She gaped at a fine wreath of wax flow- 
ers wid I. H. S. on them. 

“ 4 “Ho,’’ says she, “does that mean 
Maria was Irish?” 

“ 4 “No,” says I, me blood rising to 
think of sich ignerance; “it means I HAVE 
SUFFERED.” 

44 4 “Yes, and suffer she did, poor wo- 
man,” says Nancy. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


63 


“ ‘I saw a couple of girls getting ready 
to titter, but I give them a look that 
would freeze coal oil, and I tell you, 
they kept their faces straight. What 
do you think the old clown says to me 
by the way of compliment! She turns, 
and says she: 

“ ‘ “You would make a fine corpse, 
Misses.” ’ ” 

“Now for that piece and some others 
he is going to get handled with hands 
that won’t be any too gentle,” said Mrs. 
Sharp. 

“I ain’t got much pity for the like of 
him,” returned Mrs. Dormer. “A black 
eye wouldn’t hurt him much. Instead 
of offering our necks to get walked on, 
we’ll offer him rotten tomats.” 

“Yes, a black eye he needs, for he’s 
got his eye on Babbie Conway . ’ ’ 

“Don’t say!” 

Up went Mrs Dormer’s hands and eyes 
at the same moment. 

“But give the poor little divil her due; 
she turned him down flat when he spoke 
to her,” pursued Mrs. Sharp. “And it 
wasn’t grief for her dead husband made her 
do it . No, she is heart and soul with the 


64 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


miners ; she would die for them ; and even 
if she did like this newspaper chap, she 
wouldn’t have him for what he is.” 

“More credit to her spunk! I’ll never 
rake her out again. But is the newspaper 
fella after her yet?” 

“After her! Well, I guess he is. He’s 
always poking around to get a peep at her, 
like a jackdaw, hooping about to pick up 
any word she drops . He says she is a- 
bove her spear, so handsome a girl. Sure, 
he forced himself on her, and she up and 
fetched him a merry good crack on the 
face. Hannah’s beau, that Ned Higgins, 
told me old man that Babbie’s a brick.” 

“So Hannah has a beau!” 

“Yes indeed, and a nice fella from O- 
verbeck. She is a good girl, and lucky 
the man that gets her. She could be 
prettier, though. Pity she isn’t like 
Babbie or Rose in looks, but Hannah is 
the dead spit of her father. No prettier 
than a mushroom, but the man that mar- 
ries Hannah will never get teacups boun- 
ced off his head, the way they say Babbie 
did to Miller. No, indeed, Hannah won’t 
never be shot for beauty.” 

“Handsome is as handsome does, Mrs. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


65 


Sharp. But, oh, dear, this strike has me 
demoralized . ” 

“There,” said Mrs. Sharp, turning 
round, "down there sets me three young 
ones swalleying green cherries like ducks.” 

"Divil the hurt will the cherries do 
them. Last summer I bought a half a 
bushel of green apples, and hid them in 
the cellar. When I went to look for 
them, me young ones had gobbled up ev- 
ery apple. Colic or cholery marbles, 
not a bit of them. ” 

"Oh, them three youngsters of mine 
have brass-lined bellies. I ain’t afraid 
of them three getting sick . But I want 
to send them on an errant . Come up 
here, the half of you!” she concluded, 
calling out in a shrill voice. 

Then to her boy: 

"Skip over to Mrs. Kelly’s store, and 
get two cans of sourdines. ” 

"Ain’t it a pity,” said Mrs. Dormer, 
“that a girl with a head full of brains, 
like Rose Conway, has to live in the city, 
and wait on tables? She has lots of push 
to study, and ought to be up here teaching 
school. One of the directors said she 
was a very parrot of learning.” 


66 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“Did he say parrot? Was that the 
word? I heard it was peragon or para- 
gram or something big like that. She 
certainly does know geog’aphy, arithmetic, 
hist’ry, and them things,” replied Mrs. 
Sharp, damming with faint praise . “But 
she ought to know them, and no credit 
to her, for ain’t she always been at school? 

“Now I hear she is studying Latin and 
French between meals, when she don’t 
have to wait. Such trash, even for a 
school teacher to stuff her head with! 
When will she get to France to talk with 
the French, or to — to — wherever the 
Latins live to gabble with them. Latin 
is all right for priests, but fer women — 
did you ever hear the like?” 

Mrs. Sharp resented any reference to 
Rose Conway’s abilities, for Mrs. Sharp’s 
niece had been pushed by politics into 
Rose Conway’s school, and the niece, as 
every one knew, was not a paragon of 
learning. 

“Well,” answered Mrs. Dormer, slyly, 
“eddication never turned Rose Conway’s 
head, though the getting of a school has 
turned other people’s. I know one teacher 
who’s got the notion into her empty 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


67 


head that she’s a somebody, but how 
she is mistaken herself, poor thing ! Lands 
alive, the way she togs herself out since 
she got that school, and the strut of her 
when she walks! I never see her but 
I think of a barrel on wheels. This 
same stuck-up piece never goes out no 
more without a veil on, as if the wind 
could hurt such a face as hers.” 

The pointed allusion to her niece, 
strong in its truth, nettled Mrs. Sharp, 
but she swallowed her anger, and was 
silent . 

“Poor Mrs. Kelly is sick,” pursued 
Mrs. Dormer, changing the subject. “Bad 
nerves. It’s the blackness of this town 
be night that gave her the spell.” 

“Sure, you don’t mean the darkness 
affected her, Mrs. Dormer.” 

“Not exactly, though the dark nights 
are enough to give one the blues — nary 
a light in the town. No, Mrs. Kelly 
went out at night looking for that beast 
of a horse she has; he had got away 
again; and what should she do, the poor 
ole soul, but not see a cow in the dark 
sleeping in the road, and she fell flop 
over the cow’s back. She made a grab 


68 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


and cotch the beast be the horns. Sure 
’tis the devil,’ says she, and fainted away . 
Her nerves ain’t been good since.” 

“The divil mend her,” blazed out Mrs. 
Sharp. “No wonder she is always think- 
ing of the divil when she cheats so in 
her shop — wetting sugar to make it 
weight heavier . And why didn’t she send 
one of the boys after the horse, and not go 
herself? Musha, she’s blind in one eye, 
and can’t see very good out of the other, 
and then for her to go nosing and pok- 
ing and mousing round in the dark like 
an ole owl. ’Tis too much nerve she had. 
Nerves indeed!” with a sniff. 

“Well, of all the aggravating mortals 
I ever met, Mrs Sharp, you’re that one. 
A person wud have to be like Lot’s wife 
not to mind you — a stone or a stick.” 

“I fear me that too many of me 
neighbors are like Lot’s wife — looking 
over their shoulder at other people’s 
concerns, when they had ought to be 
attending to their own affairs. Can’t 
even leave a poor school teacher alone. 
I put me foot down on such curiosity.” 

“When you put that delicate foot of 
yours down on anything, ’tis finished, be 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


69 


that thing a worm or a turtle,” said 
Mrs. Dormer, icily. ‘‘If you lived in the 
days of the Indians, sure they wouldn’t 
be able to get snowshoes to fit you wid 
your splay feet.” 

“You can’t speak without getting 
personal, Mrs. Dormer. I could wear 
small shoes, I guess, if I was vain enough 
to squeeze my feet, like some other 
people; but give me comfort or nuthin’. 
Remember, me good woman, even the 
worm will turn when you walk on his 
tail. Job answered them on the dunghill. 
I would say I want no reflections cast 
on me foot, fer it’s me own anyhow, 
which can’t be said of a certain woman’s 
teeth.” 

“Sure, to hear you, we would think you 
as beautiful as Cleopatter, Mrs. Sharp, 
the way you talk.” 

“Well, anyhow, Mrs. Dormer, there is 
some shape and form to me, which ain’t 
true of you; you would need a stove- 
grate to hold in your waist, and give you 
figure.” 

Mrs. Dormer’s bulk shook with sup- 
pressed rage, and a rich flush suffused 
her broad nose. 


70 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


"’Tis character, not shape, that counts 
in this world, Mrs. Sharp. Beauty is 
skin deep.” 

‘‘Character! Well, I have as much 
character and conscience as you.” 

‘‘Such a woman! You’re like a crow 
that plucks the bones even of the dead. 
I heard you tearing out Maria Ford — 
God rest her soul! — the day before she 
died.” 

“True for you, but if I did, I went to 
her funeral, and put flowers on her grave.” 

“A plaster is a poor return for a broken 
head.” 

“A plaster is a better return than no 
return at all.” 

Mrs. Dormer was the very personifi- 
cation of holy scorn and righteous in- 
dignation. 

“Mrs. Sharp, the one you pelted and 
pasted with stones, while she was living, 
will get flowers from you now that she’s 
dead . You’re like the man that stole 
the duck, and then to do penance, and 
ease his conscience, gave its feathers away 
to a poor lone widdy fer her pillow. 
The Gospel says something about killing 
the prophets, and then building up fine 
tombs fer ’em.” 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


71 


“The divil always cud quote Scripture 
in his own cause, Mrs. Dormer.” 

“The divil surely would have more 
sense than to quote Scripture when you’re 
round, fer you’d be certain to perwert 
the text. You must be fine at perwert- 
ing the Gospel, since you’re so mighty 
good at perwerting characters of people.” 

“Hi-yi! Mrs. Dormer, the pot call- 
ing the kittle black. I see the divil kin 
turn preacher. The Scriptures tells us 
that he comes as an angel of light. You 
ought to be in the pulpit, me good woman, 
but you’d have to preach better than you 
practice.” 

“Faith, then, if I was preaching, you’d 
mighty soon find out, me dear woman, 
that your pew is not your bedstead. Ah ! 
’tis a pity your face is not one- half as 
long as your foot, then would you be 
rated as a religious woman.” 

Mrs. Dormer now struck an attitude, 
and folded her arms dramatically. She 
had observed the bishop closely, when he 
spoke at the church’s dedication. 

“Tain’t no use in scattering good seeds 
on hard stones,” said she, in stentorian 
tones, “fer the thorns will grow up, and 


72 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


choke you. Don’t throw your seed be- 
fore swine,” with a majestic gesture, “fer 
they will tear it to pieces. Mrs. Sharp, 
you kin go to the divil.” 

With her head held very high, Mrs. 
Dormer’s mighty form billowed away 
from the fence, leaped, elephant-like, over 
a small gooseberry bush, leaving a strip 
of calico on a slender branch, and flung 
through the doorway of her home. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE COAL MINE JOAN OF ARC. 

There were soft glances as well as black 
looks cast on Asa Robinson, the news- 
paper reporter, who was staying at 
Farringdon. He was a well made fellow, 
with the odor of city life and experience 
clinging to him. 

He had no small admiration for the 
coal-region girls; they were so naive, so 
fresh, like violets with the dew on them. 

He felt that he had fallen in love with 
Babbie Conway, and he was half afraid of 
her. He would resolve every morning to 
avoid seeing her, and a hour or two later, 
would find himself loitering about where 
he thought she might be. Things had 
now come to such a pass that he meant 
to make her an offer as soon as he thought 
advisable. 

The sun was pouring down his fiery 
beams, as his flaming chariot whirled 
through the heavens. The dust, hot and 
burning, flew in clouds into the air with 
every disturbing footfall. Heat poured 


74 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


from the blackened roofs of the houses; 
heat shot in strong rays from the coal 
banks; heat glanced off the creek’s glassy 
face. The day, as if palsied, lay mute 
and aghast. 

The silence of Farringdon was broken. 
The very air was quivering with voices; 
women chattering over fences and through 
windows; men in groups, with their fists 
clenched, talking vehemently together. 

Asa Robinson held his hat in his hands, 
as he spurned the ground with his new 
patent leather slippers. He noticed that 
a number of men, with naturally and ar- 
tificially dark faces, looked viciously at 
him, and that a curse or two fell from 
lips that were curled in dislike of him. 

He suspected that he was in danger, 
and prepared to escape. He had seen the 
face of Mrs. Kelly scowling from a 
window. Robinson had the head of a 
goose and the heart of a hen ; squawking all 
day, and ready at the least sound to fly. 

Almost before he knew it, a young fel- 
low, about his own age, tapped him on 
the shoulder with mock courtesy. Robin- 
son recognized him at once; the fellow 
whom Babbie Conway had addressed as 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


75 


“Ned” on the day that Robinson saw 
her cross the swollen creek. He looked 
from under his lashes at the miner’s 
hands of jointed steel. 

“Mr. Newspaper,” said the miner, “we 
don’t like to treat you unfair, but you 
ain’t been fair with us, so we will pay 
you in your own money. We’ll give you 
a chance, though; we don’t do no mean 
things, because we want to act like men. 
You kin fight for your life. I’m your 
man. Stand back, boys.” 

He waved his hand to the crowd 
surging like a shoal of dolphins around 
him. 

“Don’t fear, Mr. Newspaper; the fel- 
las won’t get at you. You have got on- 
ly one man to fight; that’s me. If you 
lick me, the fellas here will cheer you, 
and I'll shake hands with you.” 

Asa Robinson looked into his antago- 
nist’s face; a good-looking, square-jawed, 
fresh face with manhood and character 
in every line of it. The reporter’s nature 
prompted him to show the white feather 
and cringe, but his common sense told 
him that such a trick were useless. He 
was every whit as stout and strongly- 


76 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


made as the miner and every inch as 
tall. He had to take his chances. 

The miner waited for him to strike 
first; and he did — a clip on the chin. 
Then the world got suddenly bright for 
Robinson; a sheet of red flame which 
seemed one immense mass of shooting 
stars. He became conscious that his 
eye was bleeding. 

The miner was kneeling beside him, 
when a clatter of hoofs was heard, heavy 
hoofs that struck resoundingly on the 
stones . Every eye turned from the pros- 
trate man in the direction of the noise, 
and saw — 

A girl, beautiful as an angel, yet with 
the fire of an Amazon in her black eyes ; 
hatless, her thick dark hair tossing like 
a mane on her shoulders; her small brown 
hands clutching tightly the bridle of the 
sweating mule upon which she rode, as 
graceful, as daring, as bewitching as Camil- 
la herself . 

Straight as an arrow, fearless as an 
eagle, she dashed into the crowd that fell 
away on each side of her. It was Bab- 
bie Conway. 

As soon as the mule came within sight 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


77 


of Robinson, Babbie leaped to the ground, 
and ran to where he lay with his head 
on the miner’s arm. 

“He’s not hurt much, I hope,” she 
said, wiping the blood from his face with 
her handkerchief. 

"No,” replied the reporter, lifting him- 
self on his elbow, and looking into the 
girl’s flushed, handsome face. 

One of his eyes was shut tight and 
quite purple, but the other looked the ad- 
miration he felt for her. 

“I have been playing ’possum for the 
past five minutes. I wanted to keep one 
eye presentable,” he added, with rare good 
humor. 

He seemed to know no fear since her 
arrival, and now got on his feet. 

The miner’s blue eyes were riveted on 
Babbie’s face, too, with a look of admira- 
tion, such as painters give to the eyes of 
simple pagans before their idol . His hands 
were clenched, and there was jealousy now 
in the set muscles of his jaws. He saw 
the lover like air of the reporter. 

The mob had been silent, struck dumb 
by the apparition of this lovely girl, but 
they were getting uneasy. The reporter, 


78 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


according to their view, had not got suf- 
ficient punishment; he should be taught 
a severe lesson ; should be made feel that 
he couldn’t cartoon his betters with im- 
punity. 

“Don’t mind the beauty, Ned,” shout- 
ed out a voice in the crowd. “Do him 
up for fair, even if he is her mash. Don’t 
let a woman conquer you.” 

A great cabbage, which had been in- 
tended by Mrs. Sharp for the reporter, 
now came whirling like a cannon-ball, and 
crushed the speaker’s hat down over his 
eyes. 

The miner and the reporter studied 
Babbie’s face. It had such a color as tinges 
the clouds at sunset or dawn. She groped 
blindly, and her words came brokenly. 
Tears quivered on her eyelashes. 

“Iam shamefully misunderstood, Ned,” 
she said, placing one small hand on the 
miner’s sleeve. “I never thought of that. 
I had heard that a mob was beating a 
man to death. I knew such a thing 
would be a blot on us all. I came to 
save him and us. Oh!” 

She put her hands over her face. 

“More credit to you, Babbie,” said a 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


79 


woman who had pushed her way through 
the men to the girl, and heard her words. 
“It’s a shame. The man as said that kin 
stand out, and Polly Dormer will lick 
him.” 

She slid her arm around Babbie. 

“Don’t let them beat the reporter. 
See to it, won’t you, Ned?” said Babbie, 
drawing her unbound hair about her face. 

“Because you’ve asked it,” said the 
miner, reverently, “he will get no more 
than he has, providing he shakes the dust 
of Farringdon from his heels.” 

“Yes, let him do that.” 

Then she was gone with Mrs. Dormer, 
and disappeared through that worthy 
dame’s front doorway. The mule ran 
galloping up the road. 

Asa Robinson, escorted by Ned Higgins, 
retreated to his hotel, the men falling 
back at a few words from Higgins. 

And in half an hour, Farringdon was 
as still as ever; no noise, but the insects 
in the air, and the old sulphur creek. 


CHAPTER IX. 


JOAN OF ARC’S CONQUEST. 

“That’s her every time,” said Hannah 
Conway to her lover, Ned Higgins. 
“Always doing things that ain’t bad, but 
that any other women would be afraid 
to do . Babbie will lose her life some day 
for somebody else. 

“She was riding on the back 
of that there ole mule that’s always 
prowling about here, when some 
one said a crowd of fellas were killing 
the newspaper reporter. Heavens! she 
was off like lightning. Sure, I kin never 
keep track of her, no more than I could 
of them swallows in our chimley, that 
dip their wings at me, and skip away. 

“And she cried, you say. That’s my poor 
girl, she never feels how sore the bruise 
is at her heart, till some one presses it. 
The people talk shamefuly about her.” 

It was a balmy evening. Glittering 
noon had gone, and purple night was 
coming. 

They were sitting on the porch 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


81 


together; Ned a noble-looking giant; 
Hannah, a feminine edition of her home- 
ly old father, her hair of no particular 
color, her figure unworthy of mention 
either for grace or awkwardness. 

Truly no man could seek out Hannah 
Conway for her beauty of person ; yet the 
kindness in her eyes and in every line of her 
face, the good humor that smiled around 
her mouth, made up for her lack of 
charm . 

Now her work-worn hands were folded 
in her lap, and her eyes were fastened on 
the red-golden splash of color in the west- 
ern sky . She looked at the red west till 
the red ran from the sky to the hills, 
and all became a sheet of red fire. Happy 
Hannah ! Love had found its way into her 
quiet heart. Oh if the man by her side 
only knew of his power over her! 

“Do you think she cares about that 
newspaper fella, Hannah?” Ned asked 
the question eagerly. 

“Care for him?” was the scornful re- 
ply. “You don’t know Babbie. You 
have heard talk about her. Wait until 
you understand her better. But the fella 
has to leave here?” 


82 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“Yes and at once. If he’s here to- 
morrow morning, heaven pity his bones. 
He’s got warning enough.” 

Two hours after sunset, Babbie Con- 
way was leaning on the back gate with 
her chin in her hand. There was mel- 
ancholy in her eyes and hanging about 
her pretty mouth. Perhaps she was re- 
flecting, reflecting about her mad mar- 
riage, or her action of that day, though 
Babbie seldom reflected. 

Deep in the woods, a sad whip-poor- 
will wailed out his vesper psalms, while 
echo sang an alternate verse. A bat, 
that flying speck of dusk-time, winged its 
way by Babbie’s head. A foot-fall on 
the ashes strewn through the alley startled 
her . She peered into the darkness, ex- 
pecting to see one of the neighbors, when 
her eyes recognized Asa Robinson, the 
contemned reporter . 

“Miss Conway!” 

He came very close to her. She could 
see that his face was on fire with passion. 

“Mr. Robinson, I thought that by this 
time you were on your way to the city. 
Mind, you have been threatened, so don’t 
stay. If you do, you are running a risk. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


83 


Why didn’t you leave on the evening 
train? Why are you here?” 

“For you; you must leave with me.” 

“Do you mean to insult me?” 

“Is it an insult for a man to offer his 
love and his name? I will marry you at 
the first opportunity.” 

“Mr. Robinson,” her reply was quick 
and sharp, “I thank you, but I cannot 
accept your offer. Perhaps you do not 
know that, young as I am, I am a widow.” 

“What of that? I love you. Why did 
you save me to-day, if you didn’t care for 
me?” 

“To preserve the reputation of our men ; 
I feared they might inflict death. That 
was my only reason.” 

“God, how I deceived myself! Tell me, 
do you love any one else?” 

The question was like a dash of cold 
water. Why did her heart leap up? 

“Answer me, do you love that big chap 
who gave me the clip over the eye? He 
loves you, I can see.” 

She faltered a little, then blazed out: 

“Of course, you look for no answer to 
that question. If you do, you are going 
to taste disappointment.” 


84 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


She was like a beautiful flash of harm- 
less lightning. 

“You do love him, you can’t deny it. 
You reject me for a half-civilized savage, 
a boor. The only polishing he got was 
with a scoop shovel.” 

“Polish doesn’t count with a sensible 
woman. The polish comes off too easily, 
like the delicate tint on a plum. A little 
scratch, and we see under the varnish ; be- 
neath the Russian skin, we find the Tar- 
tar nature. Cheap education, young man, 
too often passes for true worth. 

“But whether I love a miner or no, I 
have told you I cannot marry you. If to- 
morrow my good looks took wings, like 
old Noah’s raven, and flew away, never 
to return, your love, like the dove, would 
mighty soon follow.” 

Her nerves were quivering; not because 
she cared for the weak-faced man before 
her, but because his question frightened 
her. Babbie had learned sufficient about 
her nature to fear herself. 

“So you, a woman like you, a woman 
with all your tact and beauty and grace 
and charm and cleverness, and a sort of 
peculiar genius, you would marry a miner, 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


85 


when you could be my wife, and have a 
comparatively easy life! Think of the 
anxieties of a miner’s wife; she suffers not 
only the real dangers and evils her 
husband encounters in the deep mines, 
but those also which her fears suggest. 
And then the wretched poverty!” 

“Love, Mr. Robinson, can make pover- 
ty endurable and even pleasant. Pover- 
ty draws the husband and wife nearer to- 
gether; he stints for her, she sacrifices 
herself for him. The wife lying in silken 
sloth does not love her husband more 
than the wife who works from morning 
till evening, to make ends meet; the 
wife upon the end of whose toil the sun 
never sets. 

“A miner is king in his own home; 
wealth does not there share the domin- 
ion with him. He is all in all to his 
wife; her heart is not divided between 
him and the pleasures of the world. He 
is her idol; and gowns, theatres, operas, 
pink teas, and society cannot win her 
from his worship. 

“A miner has no such gifts for his 
wife, so she thinks not of the gifts of 
her lover, but the love of the giver. She 


86 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


lives for him, he lives for her; he is her 
happiness, she his — like two planets, one 
shedding light and splendor on the 
other. 

“Mark you, I can speechify as well as 
you. But here we are, a precious pair 
of idiots, seriously talking of a husband, 
when I have not even a real lover.” 

“Let me be your lover, and I shall 
soon be your husband. The fire of my 
love will set your heart aflame, and 
then will you look at me with eyes of 
meek surrender.” 

“Hardly! Like the salamander, my 
heart is proof against love’s fire; isn’t 
at all combustible, is wrapped in a sort 
asbestos. So don’t waste your sparks. 

“Moreover, I looked at one man with 
eyes of meek surrender, and that sur- 
render was my Waterloo; life has been 
a kind of rocky island for me ever since; 
and believe me,” sighing, “at times I find 
my path hard and thorny. 

“Perhaps, like some of your city wo- 
men, after a few husbands, I might get 
used to the marriage state, but my first 
attempt, ugh!” with a shudder, “it was 
awful. Trial number one taught me a 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


87 


lesson. I am willing to act Evangeline, 
and braid St. Catherine’s tresses for the 
remainder of my days. My first love 
began in folly, and ended in repentance. 

“A woman is a fool to marry, for then 
she must cling close to her husband. 
There is no way out of it; she must 
play the vine to his oak. She sticks to 
him, and he sticks to his vices.” 

“You made a bad start, little girl — 
child, for you are nothing else. All men 
are not like your late husband, who, from 
what I hear, was a pretty bad sort of 
chap, and old enough to have better 
sense. There is no use in crying over 
spilt milk.” 

‘‘No; you, I suppose, would advise me 
to call the cats,” — lightly. 

“I would advise you to marry again; 
marry me, and have a future.” 

“You know what people say I am. 
The cymbals of criticism have made much 
ado and a brazen clashing about me.” 

“Fiddlesticks! I would stake my life 
on your honor. To me you are like 
limpid water in a crystal vase.” 

“A future for Babbie Conway! Can 
a woman like me have a future? The 


88 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


world is always and ever talking of a 
man’s future and a woman’s past. But 
enough of this chatter. You have my 
answer, Mr. Robinson.” 

Nowise daunted, he continued: 

“I don’t get on well in my love- 
making.” 

‘‘No; it’s rather slow, like pulling 
teeth, or teaching a baby his prayers.” 

The lightning had all gone from her 
eyes now, and sunshine was there. 

‘‘Of course, I feel like a fool,” he con- 
fessed. ‘‘A man hates to be made a joke 
and laughing-stock of. I feel like a fool 
that was catching at a shadow, and 
following after the wind.” 

“After a will-o’-the-wisp, I suppose? 
Look out; it may lead you into a 
swamp, and the strikers may get you. 
You are running a frightful risk.” 

“I realize that fully. Here I am with 
a sword hanging over my head.” 

“I should say rather, a brickbat. Cut 
and run.” 

“Girlie, you’re like a brook; you bab- 
ble so, but it’s musical babbling.” 

“The babbling of a brook is soon for- 
gotten.” 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


89 


“But you, Babbie, I shall never forget, 
never, never. Just to be near you makes 
my heart go pitpat.” 

“And makes mine go pity Robinson. 
But I have nothing except pity to give 
you.” 

“You are cold. You remind me of the 
snow images I used to model as a boy. 
But you are a snow-covered volcano; un- 
der that icy surface, there is a passionate 
heart. Like your own anthracite, that 
heart may be slow to enkindle, but it will 
hold long the flame of love.” 

“An end to poetry and love-making, 
Mr. Robinson. Less than a year ago, 
I was a child ; I dreamed a child’s, a girl 
child’s, dream. A dreamer, I walked of 
of my own will into what seemed a 
golden little stream . It rose about me ; 
I could neither go forward, nor retrace 
my steps; it claimed me as its own; I 
was a prisoner. I longed for death, if 
a young person can really long for death. 
Death came, but not to me. Now the 
stream I meet again, but I shall step 
no more into its sparkling ripples.” 

“Girlie, what a poet’s mind you have! 
You seem cleverer every time I see 
you.” 


90 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“Poet! I am trying to dress up in 
flowers the hard, ugly, real skeleton of 
my marriage. Why should I tell the 
plain, unvarnished tale which you have 
heard a hundred times in this village? 
I must say good night, good-bye, Mr. 
Robinson. I wish you well.” 

She turned towards the house, but 
he reached through the palings of the 
fence, and caught one of her hands. 

“I cannot leave without you.” 

“But you must. Please let go of my 
wrist.” 

She twisted herself free. A volley of 
oaths slipped from his lips. 

“You are a damned witch, a devil — 
the worst kind of a devil, a she-devil. 
By all the infernal deities, I’ll kiss you.” 

He attempted to throw open the gate. 

“Is that the language of doves?” she 
replied, with that tantalizing laugh of 
hers. “You have got drink in you, I see. 
So much the worse for yourself; you 
need a cool head till you get away from 
Farringdon.” 

“You are like wine to a man’s brain.” 

“Say whiskey; it’s more common up 
here, and that’s the unclean devil that is 
talking in you now, Mr. Robinson.” 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


91 


“Mr. Robinson! I want you to call me 
Asa.” 

“Pardon my harshness, but I had ra- 
ther call you Assa — ass — jackass; it would 
be—” 

He managed to pull the gate open, but 
she had seized an old broom leaning a- 
gainst the fence. It was now a farce for 
her. 

“Act the gentleman, and I promise not 
to hit you.” 

He glutted his eyes with her beauty, 
there under the purple heavens and 
white stars, and forgot himself. 

He prided himself on his strength — 
where a woman was concerned. It was 
characteristic of Asa Robinson to take 
advantage of the weak; all his friends 
knew that. A Sinon with men, he 
always played Achilles with women. 

He threw one arm about Babbie’s 
waist. There was a swash; another; the 
broom did excellent work; his derby hat 
was knocked down on his ears. Babbie 
now was gurgling with laughter. Her 
moods changed like a chameleon’s colors. 
She pushed him through the gateway. 

“Perhaps I had better call my father. 


92 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


You may run against a bear in trying 
to catch a hare,” she said, whereat 
Robinson became very collected and 
rational. 

“Good-bye, sir,” she turned towards 
the house. “Be careful.” 

Hearing the gate open again, Babbie 
turned round indignantly, expecting to 
see the reporter. Instead she saw the 
pale face and shining eyes of Meg 
Kennelly. 

“Was that the newspaper fella I met in 
the alley?” she asked. “Well, if you 
care for him, Babbie, or value his life, 
for God’s sake, call him back, and hide 
him somewhere. Dominick, me husband, 
has stirred up a big crowd of the loafers 
at old Nancy Cook’s tavern, and they 
are hunting all around for Robinson. 
They will come up here, for they think 
you are great with that fellow. Old 
Mrs. Kelly said you were, and that you 
sent him to get those funny pieces out 
of her for the newspapers.” 

Babbie sped down the alley to Rob- 
inson’s side. He saw a woman flee 
noiselessly around the fences, a black 
shawl over her head. He and Babbie 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


93 


had scarcely reached Conway’s gate, 
when there was a babel of men’s voices, 
among which her sharp ear detected 
Dominick Kennedy's. 

“Not a sound. Come,” she whis- 
pered. 

Down the board walk and into the 
kitchen, then up the stairway, she guided 
him. 

“Hide,” she pointed to a clothes’ 
closet. 

She had just returned to the kitchen, 
when Dominick Kennedy entered, fol- 
lowed by a crowd of tipsy strikers. 

“Where’s that city lover of yours? He 
came in herewith you; I saw him. Where 
is he, you little limb of the divil?” roared 
Kennedy. 

Babbie knew that Ned Higgins was 
sitting in the next room with Hannah, 
and must have heard. On the table was 
a fresh custard-pie which Hannah had 
baked for Higgins. Quick as a flash, 
Babbie balanced the pie in her hand, 
then it landed full on Kennedy’s face. 
The other strikers laughed. 

The door between the kitchen and 
the front room opened with a bang, 


94 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


and the angry countenance of Ned 
Higgins appeared. Hannah put her arm 
about Babbie, and looked with love at 
the poor little pale face. 

“You had better git out of this, 
Kennedy !” cried Higgins, sternly, “or 
you will get hit with something harder 
than a custard.” 

“Who was the man that come in 
here with you, you — ” 

Kennedy could not finish the sen- 
tence; Higgins had him by the throat 
and was shaking him as a dog would 
a rat. 

“Ask the question respectable- like,” 
said Higgins, “if you want an answer.” 

“Who was that man?” demanded 
Kennedy, clearing his throat. 

Babbie was herself now. 

“That man,” she turned her starry 
black eyes full on her protector, “was 
Ned Higgins.” 


CHAPTER X. 


LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT. 

Hannah gave Babbie an encouraging 
squeeze. Ned winked at the other strik- 
ers. 

“A wrong scent, lads,” said he; “the 
whiskey got into Kennedy's nose, and 
put him hunting on the wrong track. 
Good night!” 

The men laughed till the kitchen rang 
again. Kennedy was no little abashed. 

"A joke on you, Dominick!” floated 
back from the garden, as the strikers filed 
out to continue their search. 

“That fella got plenty warning,” said 
Higgins, the old jealous fire burning in 
his bright blue eyes. “He had a right 
to go. Why did he stay?” he demanded, 
looking fiercely at Babbie. 

She turned from a corpse-like white- 
ness to a crimson red, as if a scarlet 
curtain had cast a ruddy hue upon a 
marble wad. That flush was a sword 
thrust to the man’s strong heart. 

“You don’t answer; then I will,” he 


96 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


persevered. “Robinson stayed because 
of you.” 

“Yes, I plead guilty ; be-because of me, 
but I did not want it so. He will go 
away to-night,” Babbie faltered. “The 
late train will be the safest for him to 
leave on, I dare say. Will you see him 
off safely, Ned?” 

There was pleading in her voice, and 
the eyes that looked at him were as clear 
as an infant’s. 

“No,” brutally; “he must see to him- 
self. You are very interested in his safe 
journey. I guess before long you’ll go, 
too, to meet him in the city, and marry 
him and — ” 

“Ned!” entreated Hannah. 

“Hannah, he loves her, and coward as 
he is, that love made him brave for once, 
because — yes, because — why should I 
stop? — because she loves him. Coal re- 
gion men ain’t in her line; she wants a 
city chap fer husband.” 

Hannah attributed her lover’s rough- 
ness to his great dislike of the reporter . 
Babbie turned toward the stove. A 
sob was strangling her, but strangle she 
would, rather than let it pass her lips. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


97 


She could not prevent the tears from 
welling up in her eyes. Higgins saw 
large pearly drops gemming her long 
lashes, and he cursed himself in his heart. 

Hannah’s ever ready tact prompted 
her to ask Higgins to enter the front 
room, which he did, leaving Babbie a- 
lone in the kitchen. The door was shut 
between the rooms. 

Babbie sat down at the table, and sadly, 
vacantly stared at the custard smeared 
over the floor. Ever and anon, snatches 
of the conversation in the next room came 
to her. 

“No, our Rose is well educated, but 
Babbie ain’t, though she has read a sight 
of story-books. Oh, yes, you’re right, 
she kin talk like a lady. You would 
think she had swalleyed a grammar ; but 
Rose learned her that. Rose ain’t no 
dumb skull,” said Hannah’s voice. 

Higgins’ rich baritone voice, about which 
there was nothing silvery, sounded as if it 
came from a deep iron vessel. It thrilled 
the girl in the kitchen, as he replied: 

“What a pity she throwed herself 
away on that do- no-good Conrad Miller!” 
There was regret in his tone. “Still she’s 


98 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


got over that now, and after a while, 
she’ll meet — meet somebody — else and 
maybe marry.” 

“No, she won’t, never,” whispered 
Babbie, stealing into the garden, with 
her eyes full of tears. 

“I certainly am unlucky,” she sobbed in 
her throat. “I believe old Mrs. Kelly 
was right; I am ill-starred. Ned, Ned, I 
understand all. Oh, my poor Hannah!” 

When Babbie came back to the house, 
Higgins had gone. Hannah was in the 
kitchen, wiping up the custard. There 
was a damp handkerchief hiding in 
Babbie’s bosom . 

“Hannah, what a sin and a shame for 
me to waste pie so good as yours! And 
then you cleaning up the mess I made. 
Why, just this minute I returned to do 
that.” 

“Babbie how your eyes shine!” 

“Do you think so? They oughtn’t to 
shine, for they are very tired.” 

“Ah, Babbie, you can’t fool your ole 
Hannah; you have been a-crying, and no 
wonder.” 

“For heaven’s sake, Hannah, don’t 
make me cry again by your sympathy. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


99 


There’s nothing on earth a woman needs 
so much as a good cry now and then, 
though it reddens the nose shamefully, 
and is the worst possible thing for the 
eyes. 

“But that newspaper man, we must get 
him to the train. I have hit on a plan 
for helping Mr. Robinson,” concluded 
Babbie, with mischief in her eye. “Dress 
him up as a woman.” 

Hannah laughed. 

“’Pon me word, what kind of a girl are 
you? One minute crying, and the next 
ready to play any trick.” 

“This isn’t a trick. Who knows but 
Kennedy and his gang are lying in wait 
somewhere along the road to do Mr. 
Robinson harm!” 

“You kin dress him,” said Hannah, 
chuckling. She came close to Babbie 
and grew earnest . “Everybody says you 
care for that fella?” Hannah look- 
ed dubiously at her. 

“Everybody is wrong, then, Hannah 
dear . Anything I have done for him I 
have done out of kindness, nothing 
more . Was it my fault he ran after me? 
I made one great mistake, sister, and I 


100 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


have not forgotten that. Do you think 
I shall rush headlong to make another? 
And such a man as Robinson, I could 
never fancy. Why, sister, he is round- 
shouldered from looking at the diamond 
in his shirt and his patent leather slippers. 
Men like that can’t win women whose 
lullaby the coarse breaker machinery of 
a coal mine town has ground out.” 

As soon as Hannah disappeared into 
the front room, so soon did Babbie’s 
gravity vanish. She opened the stairs 
door and called. 

“Much war, my dear sir, has been 
fought over you; you are a perfect Na- 
poleon,” she said, when Robinson came to 
the kitchen. 

“Yes,” he rejoined, “a perfect Na- 
poleon — who let somebody else do all the 
fighting.” 

“Discretion is the better part of valor. 
Your absence was more desirable than 
your presence at such a time. You were 
the safer — we all were safer, by your being 
in durance vile, in solitary confinement, 
playing Napoleon on St. Helena’s Isle. 
The pen is mightier than the sword, you 
know, but the tongue is mightier than 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


101 


the pen, particularly when the tongue 
knows how to fib. But to get down to 
business. You sit here till I get clothes 
to disguise you.” 

She was gone up the stairs like a flash, 
and soon returned. He remonstrated for 
a second, and made a wry face, as she 
offered him an armful of motley clothing. 

“You had better put these clothes on, 
or you may fare badly,” she cautioned. 
“Your own mother wouldn’t know you 
in such gear . Your wardrobe is worthy 
of Julia Marlowe.” 

When the newspaper man was decked 
from head to foot, and wanted nothing 
to complete his attire, except the veil in 
his hand, Babbie, with a scream of laugh- 
ter, brought Hannah. 

She saw what looked like a “new 
woman.” Two large feet, quite unlike 
the poet’s “little mice,” leered from under 
a ruffled skirt with big red spots in it. 
A shirtwaist which appeared the worse 
for wear and a sad misfit, was partly 
covered with a turkey red shawl. A 
lace collar was stretched around a thick, 
short neck; an immense hat with a 
wreath of rosebuds, some of which the 


102 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


mice had opened, was flattened around the 
reporter's ears. Added to all this was his 
bruised eye which looked a dark spot in 
his face. 

Babbie and Hannah laughed so heart- 
ily that Robinson was rather nettled, but 
when he had glanced into the cracked 
old looking-glass, he laughed himself. 

“Great earthquakes!” he exclaimed. 
“Fearfully and wonderfully made.” 

“The veil I have given you is a heavy 
one,” said Babbie, kindly. “Wrap it 
around your head. Once on the train, 
you can throw the clothes out the win- 
dow, unless you want to keep them for 
your friends to see.” 

“Won’t you come with me to the 
station?” 

“There is no reason why I should,” 
was Babbie’s reply; “you know the way. 
Besides, I should draw on you the sus- 
picion of Kennedy and his followers if 
they saw me. I am a dangerous friend 
for you to have at present. You must 
go alone. 

“Good-bye,” she added, giving him her 
hand, which he grasped and pressed to 
his bosom. “Don’t hold up your skirts, 
Madam, and keep your bonnet on 
straight.” 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


103 


She laughed her sweet laugh, and pull- 
ed her hand out of his. Standing in the 
doorway, with his fingers on the knob, 
he looked longingly at her beautiful face; 
a ludicrous lover. But Babbie did not 
laugh again. She pulled the long veil 
from his hand, tied it around his face 
and hat, and whispering another “good- 
bye,” pushed him out into the gloom of 
the night; then the door closed. 

“I feel sorry for the poor fellow,” said 
Hannah, sadly. 

“So do I, but sorrow is about all I 
feel for him; and that isn’t what he 
wants,” returned Babbie. “Perhaps if 
I were Eve, and he Adam, I should 
marry him.” 

“Then you do care a little for him.” 

“I said I should marry him if he were 
Adam, for then he would be the only 
man on earth. But jokes aside, you’re 
tired, Hannah dear; run up to bed, and 
I’ll follow after a while.” 

Dominick Kennelly, sitting at the well 
lighted tavern, noticed the female figure 
passing down the road, and whistled at 
her. She nervously drew her veil closer 
about her face, and blessed the farsight- 
edness of a certain little girl. 


104 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“I never could care for a coward like 
him, nor for that half-fire, half-smoke 
sort of love,” Babbie mused, as she sat 
down in the kitchen. “A man of his 
stripe won’t love any woman for a great 
length of time. I have an idea that I 
know a wee bit about human nature. 
My good looks caught his eye, of course.” 

Two men thought of Babbie that 
night; one, while at the little station, 
waiting for the late train; the other 
tossing on his hard bed, a straw tick. 

“I can’t get her,” growled the one at 
the station, wiping his feet against the 
suitcase, ‘‘so I have to forget her, but 
it will take a deuced long time. Cut 
out by a miner, too. A fellow whom I 
imagined I needn’t fear any more than 
I would the Angel Gabriel. I have a 
feeling she likes Higgins, despite all her 
nightingale philosophizings. 

‘‘And as deaf to my words as the 
surges that rise in the November Atlan- 
tic; harder to soften than her home an- 
thracite, or the rocks of her native 
mountains. But she’s not like other wo- 
men; as much of the dove as the swal- 
low about her; as delicate to look at as 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


105 


Venetian glass, and as hardy and strong 
as a stone crock. She will marry that 
bull of a miner. I envy you, Ned 
Higgins. Why, to get her, I would go 
as far as Orpheus went.” 

“I’m a beast, a dog,” groaned the 
miner, pounding the bed with a sledge- 
hammer of a fist. “Hannah loves me, I 
made her do it, and now the little one 
has carried me off me feet. The poor 
little divil, every one has a pluck at her, 
except the old fella and Hannah.” 

He fell to pitying Babbie — a danger- 
ous pastime. 

“The little witch done wrong, of 
course, but what kin you expect of her? 
She is only a youngster, and she is well 
sorry.” 

He knew in his heart that if Hannah 
had done such a thing, he would never 
have forgiven her, though she was only 
four years older than Babbie; but some- 
how the thing did not seem so bad in 
Babbie’s case. Love smokes our glasses, 
when we look at the faults of a dear one. 

“I wonder if I had seen her before she 
run off with that dirty cuss — damn him! 
they say he hit her — her! I wonder if I 


106 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


could have made her love me, like 
Hannah does? Maybe I could make 
her care for me now; but there’s Hannah, 
dear poor good Hannah! Oh, if Hannah 
was only Babbie, or if only I had never 
seen that little thing!” 


CHAPTER XI. 


BETWEEN LOVE AND DUTY. 

Babbie had always leant upon Hannah, 
had always gone to her for sympathy and 
soothing words; the older sister had ne- 
ver seemed to need such kindness. 
Why, then, should this chapter find Han- 
nah with her head on Babbie’s bosom, 
her tears wetting Babbie’s calico dress, 
while Babbie, with a blind look in her 
lovely eyes, a death-like pallor on her heal- 
thy face, whispered words of loving con- 
solation? 

“Don’t, don’t, Hannah dear; there is 
no need for these fears; all will come 
right. ” 

“But he told me last night that he 
can’t marry me, because he’s got fonder 
of you than me. He did love me afore 
he seen you.” 

“Then would that the train I came 
home on had plunged into the river! 
Hannah, there must be persons born with 
a curse on their heads. Look at the mis- 
ery I have caused and the heartache.” 


108 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“Babbie, I can’t listen to that. God 
wouldn’t be God to leave innocent babies 
come into the world with curses on their 
poor little heads. You ain’t done much 
wrong. Any girl might be a bit full of 
life, like yourself. And about the train, 
that was awful to say.” 

“What does Ned mean to do, Han- 
nah?” 

“He acted the man, never fear. He 
said he would marry me, if I wanted 
things that way, since he promised, but 
he thought it fair I ought to know his 
feelings. I said he should marry you 
then, and not mind me. To-night he is 
going to ask pap about how to act and 
then he will talk to you.” 

Babbie for a brief period was silent, 
thinking deeply. 

“You said he should marry me, Han- 
nah? But I won’t marry him. It takes 
two to make a marriage, and I won’t be 
dragged by hook or crook into wedlock 
again. Once was quite enough . I ran 
into the arms of a husband not a year 
ago, but I’d run to Jericho to escape a 
husband now.” 

“But Ned loves you, Babbie.” 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


109 


“He thinks he does. Do you want me 
to marry him?” 

“No-o— yes.” 

“That’s just like you, Hannah, my 
noble sister. You would give me even 
your husband and your future home. 

“It was always so. I got everything, 
and you nothing. Education for me; 
housework for you, toil, drudgery; you 
you were ever the little mother. If there 
was money sufficient for one hat, Babbie 
got that hat, and Hannah wore her old 
one trimmed over. If we could not buy 
two dresses, I got a new gown, and you 
went without. 

“Everything was Babbie’s; she was like 
a greedy animal that snapped and gob- 
bled up all things on all sides. With 
you, a dollar was always more than a 
hundred cents; with me, it was less than 
half. 

“You, dear Hannah, ever played the 
part of the hen scratching and scraping; 
I had the role of the favorite chick, no- 
thing too good for me. 

“And then I repaid you and old daddy 
for all your kind, tender love by bring- 
ing disgrace and shame and sorrow on 


110 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


your home. Babbie comes back, weary 
and sick to death and desolate, and 
Hannah forgives and forgets. 

“Now Babbie must have the one love 
of Hannah’s life, the only man that a wo- 
man like Hannah can love.” 

Then in a low, solemn tone that had 
in it the mournful music of a dirge, 
Babbie concluded: 

“Hannah, if you love Higgins, as I 
know you do, save him from such a 
woman as I am. I have made good 
resolutions, of course, but who knows 
that I shall not trample them under foot ? 
The way to hell is bricked with good re- 
solves. Higgins must marry you, sweet 
sister ; he is too good for me ; and marry 
you he shall. 

“Hannah, I ruined my life, why spoil 
the life of a good man and your life? 
I thought once that I loved ; I braved the 
tongues of scandal, which to a woman is 
worst than death. The death agony is 
short, but the torture that disgrace in- 
flicts is deathless. I threw myself on the 
rack of scandal, and I can’t get off — 
scandal that scorches and brands, killing 
its victim by inches. Hannah, you don’t 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


111 


know what it costs me sometimes to 
smile and laugh and be gay.” 

Babbie burst into a flood of wild, im- 
petuous tears, and before Hannah could 
restrain her, had flung her slight form up- 
on the floor. Hannah’s strong hands lif- 
ted her tenderly, and held her to her bos- 
om, then laid her gently on the old 
lounge. 

On earth there was no love holier 
than the love those sisters bore each 
other. 


CHAPTER XII. 


JOAN OF ARC AT THE STAKE* 

In the evening when Babbie came 
home from Mrs. Sharp’s, between whom 
and her had sprung up a friendship, 
she found her father and Ned Higgins 
sitting in the front room waiting for her. 
She smiled gayly at them, and took off 
her hat in her careless, graceful way. 

Neither man dreamed how she had 
schooled herself for this interview; how 
under the cloak of her careless grace, she 
was lashing her heart into subjection, 
strangling the cries of her own passionate 
love. She looked as wilful, as saucy as 
ever when she met their anxious eyes. 
She noticed there was a register hole in 
the ceiling. 

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, 
excusing herself. “I want to see Han- 
nah.” 

She went lightly upstairs to her sister. 

“Get down on your knees,” she began 
playfully; “I don’t mean that you kneel 
to me, but put your ear to this hole to 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


113 


hear what goes on below. Don’t get 
frightened at what I may say to Higgins ; 
I want to knock the nonsense out of 
him.” 

She was in the front room. To pre- 
vent embarrassment, she began: 

“I suppose, pap, Ned has spoken to 
you? Hannah has told me.” 

She never looked at Higgins, and her 
tone was anything but serious. Her 
manner seemed indifferent. 

‘‘Yes, Hannah and Ned has spoke to 
me, daughter. But I ain’t got nothing 
to say in things of that kind. Hannah, 
be the way she talked to me, seems to 
be satisfied. 

‘‘When your mam and I courted — God 
rest her! — she did all the talking, for 
she was another Babbie. Little girl,” 
he went close to her, “as you are to-night, 
so was your mother the night she laid 
her hand in mine, and held up her lips 
fcr me kiss. 

“Oh!” he dashed the back of his 
hand across his eyes to wipe away the 
tears, “old as I am, I can’t forget; mem- 
ory is young always. Your mother 
is living in you, me child,” Babbie raised 


114 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


her head to receive his kiss; “and 
fer husband, there isn’t a man on earth 
I would pick out before Ned Higgins.’’ 

“You are too good to me, Mr. Con- 
way,’’ replied Higgins, playing with his 
hat. 

“But I will leave youse two here alone. 
Old heads should clear out, when young 
hearts come together.” 

With a smile that was a benediction, 
Mr. Conway went into the kitchen. 

Higgins stepped to her side. Her soul 
was on the rack, but her face showed no 
change; only her bosom rose and fell 
more rapidly, and now her fingers were 
threaded together. 

He was about to speak, but she checked 
him with an imperious gesture. A picture 
of an anguished girl on her knees in the 
room above, listening for the death-knell 
of her future happiness, was a stay for 
Babbie. 

“Mr. Higgins!” 

He winced at her formality. Her words 
were lion’s teeth upon him. 

“You need say nothing of your attach- 
ment for me.” 

Her voice was cold, and she gazed 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


115 


straight away from him. She could not 
look at the agony of the strong man by 
her side. 

“It would be a pity for you to waste 
yourself on me; I am not like Hannah. I 
made a mistake, spoiled my life; I will 
never marry again.” 

Higgins felt the determination in her 
tone, but he rejoined : 

“A child of sixteen talks of a spoiled 
life. Why, such a life isn’t hardly began.” 

“Yes, a spoiled life. A life can be spoiled 
at sixteen. How much a woman can 
learn in a year! Not a year ago, I was 
a happy girl; now my girlhood seems a 
century away.” 

“That feeling will leave you.” 

“Never.” 

“But I say it will. You will be a hap- 
py man’s wife yet, and you will be hap- 
py-” 

“I shall never run such a great risk. 
Remember I have had experience; you 
have not. Only a sailor can speak of 
the storms of the sea. I took a sail in a 
sieve; and I had a splendid time of it; 
patching and darning up holes. 

“The woman always get the worse end 


116 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


of the bargain. She is an earthen pot, 
and marries a brazen vessel; as soon as 
there is a bump, she is sure to go to 
smash. When I married, I fondly ima- 
gined I was running into the garden of 
Paradise, but I found myself in a cab- 
bage patch, where the cabbages were 
all cut; in an orchard where all the trees 
had been made stumps.” 

‘‘Heavens alive! you don’t believe all 
men are Conrad Millers?” 

“Husbands are all chips of the same 
block, all pieces of the same goods, all 
sons of Adam. All are wasps out of the 
same nest; there may be a few good 
wasps, but they are not worth seeking 
for, because of the others.” 

He stared blankly at her, yet with ad- 
miration ; her swift tongue made him diz- 
zy, as if he had looked too long at a rap- 
id stream of water. 

“How you eye me!” she cried. “You 
look perfectly awful — as if you could gob- 
ble up a goat, and pick your teeth with 
the horns.” 

“You have a mighty queer way of talk- 
ing, and I can’t answer you as I would 
like,” he said, simply. He was but snow 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


117 


in the heat of argument with her. “One 
can’t tell whether you are joking, or half 
in earnest. But I heard one school teach- 
er say he found marriage a path of roses.” 

“Of course, he did, but I wonder how 
his wife found it? While Mr. Schoolmas- 
ter was teaching the young idea how to 
shoot, and treading his path of roses, his 
wife was tied to the stove leg in the kit- 
chen, mending his socks to protect his feet 
from the thorns in his road of roses.” 

“What are women for,” he persevered, 
“but to make men happy? Women are 
intended for marriage.” 

She nodded sarcastically. 

“That’s a man’s idea. He thinks every 
girl is, hammer and tongs, after a hus- 
band. He pictures her as a kind of tempt- 
ing pullet, strutting about with a notice 
on her neck:‘Chicken Stew To-Morrow.’ 

“A miner wants his wife to be like his 
hearth-fire — always of an equal flame 
and heat; but I am on the sky rocket 
order — a gay splash of sparks, and then 
a black silence. I would not suit you. 
Ours would be a cat-and-dog existence. 
You are not the kind of man I could 
care for; I should never be happy with 
you.” 


118 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“You mean, I guess, that we would 
fight. Well, you could do all the fight- 
ing. I would sooner a slap in face from 
you than a kiss from any other woman.” 

“But I — I do not love you.” 

“You would have to love me. I have 
enough love for both, and in time — ” 

“I love the newspaper writer, Asa Rob- 
inson.” 

“You do not. Hannah told me every- 
thing, and I know from what she said 
that you don’t care no more fer him than 
I do.” 

“You are starting to fight already. 
You might as well hit a woman as con- 
tradict her.” 

He grasped her hands in his Hercules 
palms. Babbie quivered, for she loved a 
master. 

“You can’t dodge with me, me little 
wild bird. Fly high, fly low, I’ll ketch 
you. I am a man that can’t and will not 
be put off. If necessary, I will use force 
to make you me wife.” 

Babbie strove to be calm, and treat 
the whole affair as a joke, but she made 
only a faint effort to get her hands 
free. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


119 


“Force! How jolly! Big chief he 
want squaw, he take squaw by hair 
and drag to his wigwam. Force used 
to be the thing in days gone by, when 
all the Americans wore feathers and war 
paint, and were copper-colored ; but you 
can’t cart a woman to the altar in the 
year 1902.” 

“Why won’t you be my wife?” 

“I told you; I don’t love you.” 

He drew her very near, and gazed into 
her eyes; then Babbie broke away from 
him. 

“I am not fit to be a miner’s wife.” 

“Not fit!” 

“No, not fit.” _ 

“You are riddling me.” 

“There has been much scandal talked 
over in this town about me,” said Bab- 
bie, slowly and deliberately; “and you 
know a miner’s wife should be above 
suspicion, for she is his most precious 
treasure, his pearl of great price. She 
is all he has. Poor in everything else, 
he is rich in the possession of his spot- 
less wife. The breath of scandal has 
never come near Hannah. A dove with 
soiled wings is worse than a crow.” 


120 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“A few old women did the talking, 
particularly Mrs Kelly.” 

“Everybody talked, everybody is talk- 
ing. Everybody will tell you I am bad. 
Is everybody wrong, and am I right?” 

“Your dad and Hannah know what 
you are, and they say you are as good 
as gold.” 

“Their testimony will not stand; it 
would not be taken in a court of jus- 
tice. Love blinds their eyes to my 
faults and sins.” 

“What are you driving at? I certain- 
ty can't make you out.” 

“I am trying to spare your feelings.” 

“Well, I wisht you wouldn’t, fer your 
words, as far as I kin see, mean queer 
things. I want more explanations.’ 

“Mr. Higgins, I am too shallow for 
marriage; the wife’s kitchen is too nar- 
row for Babbie Conway. My heart is 
not big enough to love any one but my 
father and sisters. If I became your 
wife, you would come home some night 
to a deserted fireside. 

“I am a fish that wants an ocean to 
swim in, not a brook; you understand 
what I mean. A bee should not marry 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


121 


a butterfly. I don’t want a plodding 
career as a wife; I hate harness; I pre- 
fer a gay lover to a serious husband. 
Your honor would not be safe with such 
a wife. Don’t throw your love away, 
Mr. Higgins; Hannah deserves it, I do 
not.” 

Crushed and dejected, he fell into a 
chair. His castle of hopes had toppled 
and crashed upon his head. Once he 
looked at her face ; no further hope there, 
it was as blank as a desert. He groaned, 
his love had received so cruel a bruise. 

His reverence was crying out in an- 
guish, to find such frailty, such fickleness 
in that revered little girl. Babbie had 
succeeded well. 

“A bee should not marry a butterfly,” 
he said, echoing her words, “because the 
butterfly will leave him. Butterfly is an 
ugly name for a woman.” He staggered 
to the door. “A gay lover, not a serious 
husband. ” 

Then with flames of anger sparkling 
in his fine eyes, he returned to her side. 
Like a delicate plant shrinking before the 
strong rays of the sun, she avoided his 
furious gaze. 


i 22 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“The world is a bad world just because 
of women like you. The world is full 
of bad men just because of women like 
you. Women like you spoil men’s lives, 
ruin and destroy men’s characters. Men 
can’t help getting heels over head in love 
with women like you, and so men do 
mad, crazy things, and make themselves 
slaves and lackeys to such women. They 
give the woman everything fer her smile, 
and her smile is about all they git. Why 
don’t you smile now, why don’t you laugh 
at my destruction?” 

He paused. 

Babbie clenched her hands, and pressed 
her lips together in pain. Steel whips 
of grief were cutting fiery lashes into her 
heart. She was listening to the death- 
knell of his esteem for her. 

She crept away from him to the old 
faded lounge, and sank gratefully upon 
its hard lap. Her eyes studied vacantly 
the pattern of the rag-carpet. But she 
was not yet to escape. 

“I am going from you to-night as the 
the divil went out of heaven. I can’t 
see no good in nothing no more; every- 
thing is bad and deceiving and a lie. I 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


123 


have a good mind to git drunk, and join 
Kennedy, and go over and tackle those 
scabs of strike-breakers, and git shot, and 
go to — well, it doesn’t matter to you 
where I go. Me faith in good is lost 
forever more.” 

Before she could articulate a syllable, 
the door banged, and she was alone. 

“Oh!” it was a long drawn out moan 
from the desolate girl — as if a lamb, un- 
heeded, had crept away from its flock 
into the darkness to die. “I seem lost 
in a vale of thorns; seem drifting out 
into the misty, unknown sea; seem like 
a poor exile treading the stony moun- 
tain path away from the dear green fields 
and laughing loved voices of the valley. 
Oh, God, am I never even to cast back 
a yearning look? 

“Never till I die, shall I forget that 
look on his face; the look that told me 
I had damned myself in his eyes. I made 
him believe that I wanted money and 
influence. I said I loved Robinson. A 
daisy from Ned for my hair, I should 
prize more than a jewel from Robinson. 

“I must have been mad, mad to say 
such terrible things ; mad to blacken my 


124 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


character in the eyes of such a man; 
mad to picture myself as a wanton. 
But it seemed the only way. Dear 
God, Thou knowest how I crucified 
my own heart — but,” wildly, ‘‘perhaps I 
have murdered a man’s immortal soul! 
Oh, I must not think, I must not 
think! ’Tis done.” 

With swift steps, she left the room, 
and went upstairs, her heart plunged 
into a black well of grief, and the bitter 
waters corroding it. 

Hannah had been praying at the 
bedside, but when Babbie entered the 
room, she leaped to her feet, a great 
question shining in her eyes. 

“Babbie, I didn’t listen at the regis- 
ter-hole; it seemed kind of mean, so I 
just prayed and prayed, and waited 
for you to come and tell me. My, you 
were long; it was like ten years. But 
you are excited. Be calm, dear.” 

“Yes, yes, it’s joy, Hannah, joy. He 
will marry you, I know he will. He 
may keep away from you for a short 
time, but he'll come back to you, he’ll 
come back.” 

“Babbie, you are not like yourself. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


125 


Why, you act like you had a fever, or 
was walking in your sleep.” 

‘‘I am excited, for I quarreled with 
him. But believe me, he will make 
you his wife.” 

Babbie sat on the bed, while Han- 
nah, now on her knees, was kissing her 
sister’s passive hands in gratitude. 

Babbie looked through the open 
window out at the bleak, stony mountain 
road ; a road that seldom felt the 
touch of any foot save her own ; a road 
that stretched out in the faint light of 
the moon like her own existence. 

In her little world, the sun had been 
extinguished forever, and the moon, 
now a frightful dark monstrous body, 
rolled round and round, but gave no 
light to the darkened planet of her 
life. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE BLOODLESS BATTLE. 

The clock in the kitchen struck one. 
Babbie, who had been feigning sleep for 
hours, arose from beside her now sleeping 
sister, and crept downstairs. 

Nature was taking her revenge. Ev- 
ery nerve in Babbie’s little body was on 
fire, her eyes were bursting, a band of 
red-hot metal seamed her heart and brain. 
The delicate woman’s frame had been too 
severely tried. 

Out into the night, dark and still, the 
sky barred with sombre clouds, through 
which peeped the moon, like a fair 
cloistered nun. 

Babbie closed the kitchen door softly 
and locked it, and put the key into her 
bosom, whose panting tenant seemed 
trying to leap forth. 

The grapevine fanned her with its moist 
leaves, and tried to tangle its pensile 
tendrils in her dark hair. At the back 
of the house, a little currant bush sighed 
with every passing breath of air, and a 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


127 


family of slumbering blue and white 
phlox tossed restlessly in their dreams. 
A lanky hollyhock was casting his seed 
to the wind, each tiny black grain a 
winged life. 

Babbie stood motionless, listening to 
the voices of the night — a whip-poor-will’s 
doleful notes, which echo multiplied; a 
few uneasy crickets which chattered of 
their troubles, and eased their consciences; 
with here and there a lordly cock calling 
out to his feathered harem that all was 
well. 

Like a thing of the night herself, she 
glided through the back gateway, stum- 
bled over a tomato can in the alley, soiled 
her shoes with ashes, flung there by a 
careless hand. 

Along the dusty road, under the little 
trestle, upon which the boys were wont 
to sit, and squirt tobacco juice and whit- 
tle white chips down into the dirt. Along 
by a potato garden, encircled with a tum- 
ble-down fence; around the huge rock 
bank, on which was stretched, like a 
dead serpent, the scraper line ; under the 
horrible breaker, whose shadows, like 
monstrous beasts, seemed eager to devour 


128 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


the girlish form. The small pieces of coal 
crackled under her feet. 

She was now beyond the colliery, where 
long timbers lay, like a sleeping alligators, 
ready to snap, if disturbed; where lum- 
ber was heaped in piles; where empty 
mine cars stood rusting, chained together, 
like a string of idle convicts. 

There was an old shanty in which the 
sprags were made. The roof had holes 
in it, and mounds of sun-burnt, 1 {rain-bleach- 
ed chips lay about it, but there were no 
new sprags. A heap of worn-out machin- 
ery, screws, and bolts was gathered near 
the car tracks. 

She crossed the railroad, and was on 
the little bridge, beneath which a tiny rib- 
bon of water quivered. She could see the 
pond sleeping in the green gloom of the 
woods, the cloudy magnificence of the 
sky mirrored on the glassy surface. Tiny 
shrubs and clumps of brush and frail ferns 
grew by the road on her right, while on 
her left, high culm banks towered to the 
heavens. 

Now she was climbing the mountain 
with rapid strides; physical exertion was 
relief. Her shoes were worn and thin- 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


129 


soled, and the stones of the mountain 
road rough and sharp. 

Rains had washed deep ruts into the 
ground, where yellow dust had settled, 
which at every step flew into the air. A 
bloated toad hopped hastily across her 
path, and tumbled into a ditch. She trod 
on a long, slender snake, which had curled 
up in the warm dust, and was dozing. 
A warning hiss, and the reptile glided a- 
way into the underbrush and blackberry 
bushes. 

Shadows and lights played at hide and 
seek on the road. The moon whimsically 
cast her light through the overhanging 
trees, and drew upon the highway maps 
of fantastic design, filigree work, and Jap- 
anese gods. 

Babbie paused for a moment, and looked 
back into the valley. Enwrapping the 
coal banks was a silver mist, in which 
fireflies darted, like stars of the earth. A 
passenger train, miles away, lumbering a- 
long through the tenebrous bosom of a 
swamp, looked like a huge glowworm. 

Then she sank to the ground, and sob- 
bed out the sorrow which, like a foul, 
cold viper in a robin’s nest, had stolen in- 


130 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


to her heart, and driven away her peace. 

Through a rift in the clouds , the moon 
saw a piteous, slender, lissome figure ly- 
ing on a green patch near the mountain 
top; a figure that writhed and moaned 
and screamed, like a poor bird, wounded, 
bleeding, and alone, dragging along on a 
broken wing, gemming the grass with the 
ruby drops of its heart. 

Under the moonlit, dewy dark moun- 
tain pines, she told to the pitiful, listen- 
ing silence the sorrow she could pour in- 
to no mortal ear. The affrighted air 
carried on its scented wings the mourn- 
ful notes of her voice to the brooding 
birds, and the tiny passionate hearts 
within those downy breasts, strong in 
their own love, murmured sympathy. 

The moon fled, and all was silence, 
the very darkness holding its breath. 

Silence on the misty mountain top; 
silence in the deep glade, where hid the 
timid hare and the crafty fox; silence 
down in the painted valley — silence as 
soothing as if time had laid down his scythe 
in this forest, and were resting; silence 
as profound as that before the winds 
were made. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


131 


How much the human body can suf- 
fer! What torment, what crucifixion, 
but how much more the poor human 
heart! The body can seek consolation, 
often the heart cannot. 

How sharp is the pain of unapparent 
wounds ! How bitter the agony we 
must not show; the anguish which 
chokes and suffocates us, yet which we 
dare not communicate to others, and 
ask their help! Oh, if the dumb earth 
could only tell of the woe that little 
girl sobbed out into its maternal bosom ! 
Oh, if that grassy spot could show a 
picture of the pangs it witnessed that 
night; could echo the sad words it 
heard ! 

At length, the rage and fury of Bab- 
bie’s grief spent itself, like a storm sub- 
siding. 

She found a graveled, sandy, stony path 
which led to the road, crossed a fallen 
lichen-covered old tree, and was slowly 
wading through a sea of flowerless daisy 
plants, when the sound of a man’s foot- 
steps on the road startled her. Fortu- 
nately neighboring elms cast a deep 
shadow over the dell in which she was 


132 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


She sank to her knees, parted the long 
grasses and plants which waved above 
her head, and peeped cautiously out. 

Ned Higgins was standing not ten 
yards away, having just penetrated to 
the road from the opposite side of the 
woods. His hat was in his hand. The 
clouds, chasing one another, left the 
moon shining in undimmed glory, and 
her pure light fell upon Higgins’ strong, 
manly, handsome face, where a troubled 
mind had left its mark. The watching 
girl saw the lines about his mouth and 
the shadows under his eyes . 

“I thought I heard Babbie’s voice; I 
was sure I did,” he muttered aloud. 
“But I must be seeing things; she would 
never be here at this hour of the night.” 

Dejectedly, he kicked his way through 
the dust, and hat in hand, went down 
the mountain side away from Farring- 
don. 

Babbie, from her billow of grass, looked 
after the noble head and flat, square 
back. Tears glistened in her eyes, like 
the drops of crystal on the sleeping 
elms’ leaves. She started to her feet, 
and trampled to death a rakish grass- 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


133 


hopper that lay drunk with dew. Then 
she turned from Higgins, and fled down 
the mountain to her home. 

It was not a night bird that softly 
rustled at Conway’s gate, though the 
little body made scarcely more noise than 
a bird as it entered. A forlorn girl with 
weary eyes stole into the poor bed 
by her tired sister’s side. Babbie had 
fought her battle, with no one to see her 
struggles but God, and she won . 

Battles like hers are going on every 
day, all around us — awful battles with 
nature, noiseless and without the shedding 
of blood, and the victory is very pre- 
cious. We know little of those battles 
and care less. But many like her, the 
numerous black sheep, pointed at and de- 
spised, are dearer to God’s heart, and 
perhaps fairer in His eyes than we who 
thank Him for not having made us like 
them. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


NIPPED IN THE BUD. 

Ned Higgins remained at his Overbeck 
home the next day and the next; he 
feared to meet Babbie. 

Dominick Kennedy made good use of 
Higgins’ absence. He harangued the 
strikers in his crude, yet attractive way, 
and excited their easily inflamed pas- 
sions. Like all men used to daily labor, 
they wanted to keep on the move, 
wanted to be up and doing, and they 
found time hanging heavy on their 
hands. 

Babbie Conway, ever vigilant, ever 
daring, had kept out of Kennedy’s way, 
but was wed informed of what he was 
doing. 

With the help of Mrs. Sharp, she 
saved three Polanders from a beating. 
The trio had tried their hand at “scab- 
bing,” and were going to their homes at 
Rockton, when they encountered an am- 
bush of strikers. The terrified Poles 
fled, shrieking and cursing, as stone after 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


135 


stone struck their heads and shoulders. 
Bleeding and exhausted, they ran into 
Conway’s garden. Babbie, moved to 
sympathy by their plight, secreted one 
in a bake-oven, and another on the loft 
of the stable. Mrs. Sharp guided the 
third through a labyrinth of coal banks, 
and hid him in her cellar. 

“Dear Lord!” exclaimed Hannah, 
“here comes the big mob! Maybe they 
will find the Poles, Babbie, an’ if they do, 
nothing won’t save them, and Kennedy 
will do something to you.” 

“It won’t be my fault if they find 
them,” was the answer. 

Babbie rushed from her bedroom win- 
dow, down the stairs, and into the gar- 
den . She met a burly striker at the gate, 
and bewitched him with a smile. She 
knew the power of her beauty. 

“Where’s them damn Huns?” was his 
inquiry. 

“Gone out the road, like streaks of 
lightning. They are making for the 
mountain. No doubt, they are trying to 
get to Fairview.” 

He shouted out the information to 
those nearest him, and the rumor went 


136 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


through the crowd. Up the road raced 
the heated mob, the dust blinding and 
choking them, and settling on their 
sweating foreheads. 

Babbie danced a jig in the kitchen 
for Hannah’s benefit. 

“Now,” she said, “to get the poor 
Poles away. I’ll warrant you they won’t 
play strike-breaker again ; they are fright- 
ened out of their wits.” 

She carried two tubs into the kitchen, 
and threw on a chair a couple of towels. 
Then she called the quaking foreigners. 

“Wash youself — quick. Me get clean 
clothes for you,” she said, adopting the 
dialect used by the Poles. “Nobody 
know for you when you for dressed up 
nice.” 

Even in this act of charity, Babbie’s 
fun-loving nature had full play. She ran 
to some trustworthy neighbors, explained 
the situation, and returned with a roll 
of clothes. 

One of the men was tall, the other 
short. The tall one was given a pair of 
trousers that ended three inches above 
his shoetops. A high silk hat that old 
Jack McLain had bequeathed to his 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


137 


boarding mistress for her bill, and which 
had a band of crape around it, was pre- 
sented to the chunky Pole. 

“You for look sad,” said Babbie, “and 
everybody tink you wife she die.” 

He nodded solemnly, and the hat shook 
back and forth, for it was resting on his 
ears. 

But the three Poles reached home 
safely, and were enthusiastically greeted 
by their wives and numerous progeny. 
The wives blessed the two women who 
had saved for them the fathers of their 
babies, and solemnly averred that they 
would live on huckleberries rather than 
that their husbands should incur such 
danger again. 

That was Dominick Kennedy’s work 
for the first day of Higgins’ absence. 

Again the devil, through his human 
agent, found employment for the idle 
hands and idle brains of the strikers. An 
attack on the deputies, or strike-breakers, 
was planned . That was Kennedy’s work 
for the second day of Higgins’ absence. 

Hannah and Babbie Conway were in 
the kitchen; Hannah looking into a pot 
on the stove, Babbie looking into the 
mirror. 


138 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Hannah saw swollen, boiling beans 
dancing and flinging themselves about 
in a kind of miniature Charybdis, while 
a piece of pork spluttered and grumbled 
like an overfed Hollander. The sweat- 
ing, panting beans had quite a jolly 
time with the meat — dodging and duck- 
ing about the lump, as if it were a may- 
pole, and they gay queens of the meadow. 

Babbie saw a face that made her gurgle 
with laughter — a face whose features and 
expression were changing every second. 
Now the face was as long as a cucum- 
ber, and had no forehead, and the eyes 
were nowhere. Now there was a ter- 
rific brow, almond eyes, and a chin which 
seemed to have usurped the place of the 
nose. Now the nose looked like a small 
streak of forked lightning. 

The mystery explained — the mirror 
was an extremely cheap one, having 
waves in the crystal; and Peter Conway, 
while trying to comb a straight part in 
his hair, had knocked down the looking- 
glass, and to its many defects, added a 
crack. 

Hannah closed the pot, whose lid pre- 
sently sang a quaint little song of its 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


139 


own, and Babbie, with a parting smile 
at the distorted countenance in the mir- 
ror, iturned away. 

The sisters fell to serious conversa- 
tion. 

“There certainly will be murder,” said 
Babbie. “The scabs are curs every one 
of them, but murder is an awful thing. 
Life is God’s gift, and it is not for man 
wantonly to take away . Besides, it may 
not be the scabs who will die, but our 
own men. The innocent may suffer more 
than the guilty. 

“Something ought to be done to avert 
the crash, and done at once. Our Far- 
ringdon men expect the Montgomery 
and Mine Run miners, and a lot of Huns 
and Poles from Rockton. If once those 
foreigners get started, nothing on God’s 
earth will prevent murder. 

“And Dominick Kennelly’s speeches 
are the cause of all the trouble . 
He’ll kill somebody one of these days, 
and there will be a piece of rare fruit, 
bad, rotten fruit, hanging from the gal- 
lows-tree at the county prison, and taint- 
ing the air. This would-be leader of 
men will wear a garland yet, but the gar- 


140 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


land will be of hemp, and will not be a- 
round his head, but around his neck.” 

“His poor wife, poor Meg!” sighed 
Hannah. "And it’s the cursed drink 
that is his undoing. Why, he kin hold 
more whiskey nor a barrel. If he was 
only like Ned Higgins!” she added in- 
genuously. 

“Do you know, Hannah,” Babbie 
wheeled around, “I always think of 
heaven and hell, each fighting against 
the other, when I see Higgins and Ken- 
nelly. The men here will follow either 
of them. What a pity Ned can’t talk 
in that catchy way of Kennelly’s! 

“Higgins takes no warmer cup than 
your coffee, while with Kennelly, life is 
alternately a fit of crazy drunken joy, 
and then a spell of sour stomach and 
dejection. Oh, the seductive poison of 
misused liquor. I read a story about 
a witch who transformed men into swine 
by giving them a drink at her table. 
That witch should have been named 
whiskey.” 

Babbie went to the open window, and 
looked out at the washery, on a peak of 
which were perched three or four ribald 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


141 


crows, preening their feathers, as if they 
scented blood and slaughter, and were 
waiting impatiently. 

Clouds upon clouds of steam were sail- 
ing in the air, about the little colliery’s 
roof, the floating steam giving the narrow 
black structure the appearance of a 
gigantic troll with snowy locks. There 
was the squeak of scraper lines, the 
whirr of wheels, and the faint notes of a 
man’s whistle, sweet and low, in the dis- 
tance. 

Babbie’s soft face hardened. 

“If God wasn’t so slow” said Hannah, 
“He would send down fire and brimstone 
to burn them low-lived dogs off the earth. 
To think of them, the scruff of the 
country, coming here to take the bread 
out of our mouths. The poor strikers! 
if they fight, they fill a jail; if they set 
still, they fill a grave.” 

“We have much to be thankful for, 
Hannah. We have not yet suffered want, 
and we have been able to help the more 
needy ones a little.” 

“Yes, we kin thank our poor Rose for 
that. She tells me Meg Kennelly’s aunt, 
Maria Casey, helps her a good bit. It 


142 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


is a blessing for her that some one helps 
her, for she would fare mighty thin, if 
she had to depend on her husband. 
That Dominick Kennedy ought to be 
tarred and feathered. To see his wife 
hungry and him out blowing his horn in 
the saloons, and telling what he could 
do if he would. 

“in winter, Dominick drinks to drive 
the cold out of his heart, he says, and 
in summer, to keep him cool; but about 
the only thing the whisky does is put 
the divil into him. 

“Poor thing, her married life ain’t 
been a picnic or a lawn party. Thumps 
and kicks she got during the honey- 
moon. He nearly skulled her a couple 
of time, such blows he give her on the 
head. 

“Every pay night she heard the same 
old tune: ‘Out you go, Meg, stove and 
all.’ And out she did go. 

“One time, in perfect divilment, while 
she was stiffening her bread in the 
trough, he lifted her up, and set her 
plump down into the dough. You 
know how little and thin she is, and 
he is like a bull. Another time she was 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


143 


scraping the last bit of flour from out 
of the barrel, — God knows, many’s the 
time she had to scrape, — and he takes 
her be the heels, and stood her on her 
head in the barrel. She was near a 
goner be the time a neighbor got her 
out. 

“Her life ain’t full of sunshine, for it’s 
not once or twice that her shoulders 
have been purple from his fists. Once 
while he was in playful humor, he 
cracked a dozen of eggs on her head. 
‘Read where eggs helped the growing of 
— hie! — hair,’ says he, aiming the 
twelfth egg at her skull. Sure, he makes 
her play bootjack, and take off his 
shoes. 

“Only works when he feels like it, 
and you needn’t think that’s too often. 
Does nothing but lounge around the 
saloons all the time; talks a good deal, 
always sounding his own horn and 
blowing; and ready to grab up any free 
glasses of beer that happen to sail 
along.” 

“Hannah!” 

Babbie’s cheeks lost their color. 

“The men are gathering to make an 


144 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


attack on the deputies. O God, guard 
pap! The deputies have ammunition, 
piles of it, and our men haven’t. It is 
mad of the men. God help them! We 
can’t blame them; they see hunger ahead. 
But it’s suicide, it is rash suicide for 
the miners to attack the deputies.’’ 

There was a wild look in Babbie’s 
black eyes. She rushed to the porch 
to get a clearer view. 

Men, men, men; men coming with 
stones and clubs in their hands; men 
with axes and shovels; men, a few, with 
guns in their hands. 

A girlish figure, with hair flowing, 
sped along the board-walk and through 
the gate. Oh, to be a man, then, an 
eloquent man, to pacify the seething 
passions of the mob! 

“Babbie! Babbit, be careful!” 
shrieked Hannah in an agony of fear. 
“What can you do? Dominick Ken- 
nelly would choke you black.” 

“God deliver us! Babbie Conway 
has lost her head,” commented Mrs. 
Kennelly, as she saw the girl’s slender 
figure dart down the road. “Heavens, 
she runs like a goat.” 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


145 


A flock of guinea hens, like soured 
Dame Van Winkles, were scolding their 
shiftless Rip of a husband, and filling 
the air with their harsh, shrill voices. 
Over against the guinea fowls was 
camped an indolent army of geese, 
which ever and anon let out a contented 
squawk. 

Geese and guineas were sent shrieking 
in indiscriminate rout; Babbie had 
dashed right through their headquarters. 
In her wake was a cloud of yellow 
dust, which flew over the fences, and 
angered the bumblebees tolling kisses 
from the ruby lips of their favorite 
flowers. The road hardly felt the fleet, 
flying touches of her feet. 

Babbie forgot that her hair was un- 
bound, and floating behind her like a 
black cloud; that her sleeves were rolled 
up, displaying her plump arms and dimp- 
led elbows; that the neck of her dress 
was unbuttoned. 

The priest’s house stood at the foot of 
the mountain, almost half a mile from 
the Conway home. So quietly was the 
attack on the deputies planned that Fath- 
er Brady, the ever watchful pastor, had 
got no inkling of it. 


146 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


He had just closed his breviary, when 
he heard some one stumble and fall on 
the steps. He hurried out, expecting a 
hasty sick-call, and saw Babbie Conway 
rising to her feet. Her lovely face was 
aglow, her eyes like stars, her breath 
almost gone. Her dress was open at 
the throat, and her slender fingers 
fluttered nervously, as she modestly tried 
to button it. 

“Who is sick, child? Why, you have 
almost killed yourself.” 

“An attack on the deputies!” she 
managed to gasp . “ M urder — the miners 

— from Montgomery and — ” her voice 
broke off. 

“Sarah, see to Babbie Conway!” call- 
ed Father Brady to the housekeeper; 
then he was gone. 

Babbie looked after him, as his figure 
in his cassock, hurried down the dusty 
road. 

“Please God that he may be in time,” 
she murmured . 

She sipped a few drops from a glass 
of water, as the house-keeper fanned 
her. 

“Come, Sarah,” she said, “let us pray 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


147 


before the altar that there may be no 
loss of life.” 

The old woman and the girl entered the 
church — Moses on the hill, Joshua in 
the valley. 

There had been no attack yet made 
upon the deputies . But they had heard 
the thunder of the approaching storm, 
and they trembled behind their stacks 
of ammunition . The washery was now 
as still as the grave, and not a man 
could be seen near it. The cowardly 
strike-breakers were peeping from the 
cars. 

Dominick Kennedy was about to give 
the miners a signal for the charge; the 
crisis had come. At that very instant, 
an old priest, with snow-white hair, ap- 
peared on the coal bank. He had 
climbed up the side, and reached the 
summit before anyone became aware of 
his presence . His quick eye took in the 
situation at a glance. He saw who the 
ringleader was — Dominick Kennedy. 
Kennedy was a bold man; no one had 
ever seen him show the white feather; 
but he feared a priest. 

“Dominick! What’s this? What’s 


148 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


this?” demanded Father Brady, ap- 
proaching the abashed leader. “Now, I 
tell you once and for all — ” 

Dominick stayed to hear no more . He 
had been sidling to the edge of the bank, 
as the priest came nearer, and now with 
one mad rush, he went stumbling, run- 
ning down its steep side. Splash! He 
fell headlong into the sulphur creek. 
Blinded with mud, his mouth full of 
dirty slime, he tore along the railroad, 
and was lost to view. 

Father Brady tried to be dignified, 
but failed. He burst into a hearty laugh, 
that was echoed by the crowd. 

The deputies were unmolested. The 
champion of the mob had fled. Down 
crashed the plan of attack; its chief pil- 
lar had a sand foundation. 


CHAPTER XV. 


AMONG THE COAL BANKS. 

Babbie Conway — she was still known as 
Babbie Conway; no one ever thought of 
calling her Mrs. Miller, and she herself 
would not have permitted the name — 
Babbie Conway was wending her way 
through the coal banks. 

A song trolled on her lip, and her eyes 
were bright, though there was such a 
weight in her passionate bosom. A rain- 
worn straw hat tilted up from her brow, 
and added to the dark beauty of her 
piquant face. She had a long, slender 
switch in her hand, and lashed her skirts 
carelessly, as she tripped along. 

She came to a sudden halt; Dominick 
Kennedy was approaching from the op- 
posite direction. He was intoxicated, his 
eyes and veins full of the liquid fire the 
cheap saloons furnished ; and she shrank 
instinctively, as she though of the insult- 
ing words she would soon hear. She, how- 
ever, expected no more than an insult. 

“Ain’t it good we meet?” he sneered, 


150 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


putting his red face close, on which passion 
had plowed lines, and breathing 
upon her his disgusting breath. “I have 
a bone to pick with you, me young crow- 
bait. Who brought Father Brady on me? 
Who managed to git the newspaper fella 
off somehow? And I have me despicions 
that you lent them bloody Poles a hand. 
All that has come to a head now, and 
I am going to pay you back, damn you ! 
pay you back with interest and to spare . ” 

His closely cropped head was like a 
shoe brush. His short thick hands and 
stubby fingers twitched, as if they long- 
ed to kill . He was a picture of the beast 
unrestrained, every passion pampered. 

Babbie look around helplessly at the 
towering banks. He could murder her 
here, and no one might hear her cries. 
He watched her every movement, but 
she was too quick for him. 

She cut him across the eyes with her 
switch, tore herself loose from his clutch- 
ing hand; than with the graceful leap of 
a mountain gazelle, she passed him, and 
sped along among the old timbers and 
huge pieces of slate and rock. 

With a horrible imprecation, he follow- 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


151 


ed her, the welt on his face standing 
out a line of blood. In his anger, 
his teeth sank into his lip, and the veins 
of his brow were like whipcords. 

It was like a hare slipping from the 
very grasp of a pursuing hound whose 
open jaws were ever ready to seize. She 
might have beaten him in the race, for 
Babbie was fleet of foot, but she step- 
ped on a ragged piece of sheet iron, slip- 
ped, fell. 

Her persuer seized her by the throat, 
and lifted her to her knees. Her little 
body bent like a withe in his clutch. 
She grew cold all over, as she looked at 
his terrifying face, with its sinister sneer 
and frown. 

She could hear the wild rush of the 
sulphur creek, which had been swollen 
by the rains of the day before. She had 
neared the railroad, and might have 
called for help. Kennelly’s ear caught 
the roar of the stream. 

“There’s where you go, beauty,” he hiss- 
ed. “A crack from me fist on that little 
temple, then a fling into the water, and 
you won’t do no more divilment. When 
you’re fished out of that dirty, black 


152 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


mess, your face and them owl’s eyes 
won’t do any more mischiefs. Like as 
not, you won’t have no face at all. Them 
devils of red lips won’t smile no more, 
and set men after you. You will die 
like a rat, and when you’re found, may- 
be that won’t be for a month, you won’t 
be no prettier than a rat.” 

He was spitting those words down in- 
to her face, as he dragged her along. 

Along over old splintered boards and 
worn-out pulleys ; through heaps of rusted 
iron, chute pans , broken cog wheels, 
scraper buckets, and chains; over coils of 
rope, over big lumps and piles of coal. A- 
long the hard ground, her thin calico 
dress tearing in slits; nearer and nearer to 
the fatal stream. 

Her face was upturned to the glorious 
heavens, where the sun floated in midday 
splendor amid golden-f ringed, marble 
clouds. She closed her eyes, and tried to 
think of eternity and her Creator. 

Dear God, must she die now? With 
what strength she had remaining, she tore 
his hands from her bruised throat, and 
screamed piercingly. Kennelly clenched 
his fist to strike her, when a man’s voice 
stopped him. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


153 


A sound of footsteps flying across the 
swinging plank that served as a bridge, a 
crackle of coal dirt. Then Kennedy was 
stretched out on the ground by a well 
directed blow in the jaw, and lay there. 

Ned Higgins turned to lift Babbie, but 
she was already on her feet, adjusting her 
hat, and pushing back from her white fore- 
head her heavy hair. 

“I am all right,’' she said. 

He turned back furiously upon Kennel- 
ly whom he lifted, and punched three or 
four times in the face, each time bringing 
blood. He tossed the huge body around, 
as a dog would a mouse. Then he wiped 
his hands on his pocket handkerchief, and 
turned tenderly to Babbie ; while Kennedy 
groaned, and pressed his hands to his 
face; the right to his swollen lips and 
bleeding teeth, the left to his black-and- 
blue cheekbones. 

“What was wrong?” he demanded. 

“A friendly quarrel,” she said, with the 
piteous ghost of a smile. “And the 
weaker party went down. I caused the 
trouble myself.” 

Kennedy, who was near enough to 
listen, and who was now even afraid to 


154 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


curse, looked with surprise at her. 

“Don’t make light of this,” said Hig- 
gins, severely. “He was choking you. 
Say the word, and I will flay him alive. 
I would like to yank him over to that 
bridge plank, pitch him across it, wear 
out that board on him, give him the best 
thrashing of his life, and then fire him in- 
to the creek.” 

“Kennelly came to — to apologize to me 
for things he said, and I, being in bad hu- 
mor, wouldn’t give him the chance. I 
aroused the very devil in him. I shouldn’t 
have talked so to a half-drunken man, and 
to stop my rapid tongue, the man simply 
had to choke me. But thanks to you, 
Ned — Mr. Higgins. Let Kennelly go 
this once, and he and — and — and I prom- 
ise to be good next — next time.” 

With an attempt to skip, she went 
through the heaps of refuse, though her 
face was like death, and she was 
trembling. 

But Higgins saw beneath the mask of 
her gayety, and knew she was suffering. 
All his passionate love aroused, he step- 
ped towards her. Just in time; with a 
little sigh, she fell fainting into his arms, 
and her dark head lay on his breast. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


155 


Kennelly looked unutterable things 
after Higgins, as he carried her home. 

“Well, I seen gamers before, but of 
all the gamers I ever seen, she beats the 
divil. Game she is from her little black 
head to her toe. Didn’t squeal when a 
word from her would a kilt me, and she 
knowed it. The curse of the divil on 
them hard knuckles of his. He gave me 
me fill, there’s no doubting. 

“Well, Babbie, me brazen little tom- 
boy, me dashing young widdy, maybe 
you ain’t so black as you’re painted. 
Maybe there is a bit more good in you 
than we knew. You did me one good 
turn anyhow; it was a good turn; and — 
yes, I’ll pay you back in kind, if ever 
I get the chance, and if I have to get 
in the snakes to do it. Now, if she only 
won’t tell, but I don’t think she will, 
seeing the way she has treated me.” 

No one, save Hannah, ever learned 
how close Babbie had been to a cruel 
death. 

Kennelly never again could look his 
victim in the face, but in his heart, he 
had the greatest admiration for her, and 
sounded her praises on all occasions, in 
season and out of season. 


156 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Meg, his wife, wondered and rejoiced 
at her husband’s change of heart, for she 
knew that he had detested Babbie 
Conway, and feared that he might do 
the girl mischief. 


CHAPTER XVI 


JACOB AND THE DAUGHTERS 
OF LABAN. 

Over a week had gone by, tortoise- 
like, heavy and slow. 

Higgins found his heart hungering for 
another sight of Babbie. It had been 
heaven to hold her in his arms for the 
brief time of her unconsciousness. It had 
been heaven to feel her little heart beat- 
ing so close to his, to see her flower-like 
face so near his own. How helpless she 
was then, how weak and childish, and he 
so strong! Yet the very touch of her 
fingers had sent the blood bounding in 
mad leaps to his brain. 

It was Sunday morning, and all na- 
ture seemed at peace. The sky was clear 
with scarcely a cloud; the grass still wet 
with dew, the sun just rising. The birds 
winged their way from tree to tree, tril- 
ling, caroling, chattering, chirping, till 
they awoke the echoes of the woods with 
their melody. 


158 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Higgins had been at Farringdon, and 
was now slowly sauntering along the 
railroad in the direction of Montgomery. 
He raised his eyes suddenly, and saw 
coming down the railroad toward him 
the very object of his thoughts. 

She had stayed overnight with friends 
at Montgomery; and now was hurrying 
home, her eyes bright with the fresh air, 
her cheeks like twin roses, her lips bare- 
ly parted, between which shone her strong 
little white teeth. She saw him; he 
quickened his steps, she halted. 

“I am glad to see you,” he said. “I 
kin walk home with you; the road is 
lonesome.” 

In Higgins’ voice, though he spoke 
dialect, there was a something that won 
Babbie more than could the softly modu- 
lated, well cultivated voice and nicely 
rounded periods of Asa Robinson, the 
rhetorical writer. 

Babbie chattered on, as she skimmed 
over the ties, chattered on deliriously. 
Never was she nearer losing her self-pos- 
session ; and to lose that, she knew, meant 
ruin to herself and to Hannah’s hopes. 

Young love by her side, so warm, so 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


159 


strong, so near; her sense of duty and her 
sisterly affection, cold and forbidding, so 
far off ; an earthly lover so close, holding 
in his power all that could make for her 
life worth the living; God so distant, 
with the far-away promise of eternal 
beatitude, for the renouncing of a thou- 
sand actual joys; heaven and its riches so 
far above; the cold, hard world all round 
about, with its need of love and tender 
care — the temptation was a fearful one. 

Oh, to die of hunger on the heights 
which commanded fruitful fields! She 
had only to take a few steps, and the 
tempting delights were hers; but she must 
never leave her pure mountain summit; 
she should find not food for her life, but 
remorse, which like carrion, would taint 
all; she should put to her lips Dead Sea 
apples to embitter her existence. 

She must slake her human thirst in 
her sister’s happiness. It was her duty 
to do the heroic, to become from a reed 
yielding to each and every whim, a pillar 
of constancy and courage, to put away 
with her own hand the golden grain of 
joy, and feed her heart on dry, hard 
husks. 


160 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


A mist came into her eyes, and shut 
out the eastern horizon, but it was not 
a mist caused by the intensely bright 
morning. 

Babbie knew her own weakness, and 
for a moment the mad thought of flight 
from Higgins presented itself, but in a 
moment was banished. That would be 
ridiculous, and he would undoubtedly 
pursue her. Her only refuge was her 
tongue. She must let him speak as little 
as possible. 

Rapid, light, frothy conversation would 
throw an invisible armor around her; 
would be a charm to ward off the be- 
trayal of her secret love; would keep from 
from her the wiles and weapons of pas- 
sion — passion which a quivering lip or 
an unguarded eye might reveal. 

Yet through it all, she felt like a Crusoe 
marooned on an islet, with the stormy 
waves maliciously licking away the ground 
round about, and rising slowly, but surely 
to engulf him; like a man journeying a- 
long a dangerous path, where a wild beast 
might at any moment attack him, or he 
might tread upon a serpent; like an es- 
caped convict, who feared that his stolen 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


161 


cloak might be flung open by the wind, 
and reveal his prison garment. 

To be with Higgins was for her to toy 
with edge tools, to toss a rope play- 
fully which might be converted into her 
halter. 

Higgins was no fool. Her treach- 
erous nature might act Judas, and re- 
veal what she would die to keep hidden. 
A telltale flush in her cheek he might 
construe into the dawn of a rosy future 
for him. While her lips were driving 
him away from her, her eyes might 
plead with him to stay. 

Higgins’ conversation — for he spoke 
too — thus far had been treading on 
ground dangerous for them both . Once 
or twice, he came perilously nigh to a 
quicksand . 

“I have been speaking to Hannah a- 
bout the things you said to me that 
night,” he persisted, “and she said that 
you had told her you were going to 
say awful things to knock the nonsense 
out of me. Well, you did say them . 
You took a way that no other woman on 
God’s earth would take, but, then, you 
ain’t like no other woman. You are a 
kind of bird that flies all alone. 


162 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“But you lied to me that night. She says 
you did, your dad says you did, I say 
you did; fer you cud have married the 
newspaper man if you wanted to, and 
gone away, and been rich and gay, but 
you wouldn’t do it. 

“That night when I run out of your 
house, like a lunatic, I went up on the 
mountain side, and wandered around till 
near daybreak. I turned over and over 
in me own mind the whole affair, and I 
saw how it couldn’t be true, what you 
said of yourself. 

“Then as if a message from heaven, I 
heard your voice floating down on the 
breeze. I could have sworn it was your 
voice, crying and moaning, only I knew 
that was impossible; that I was only im- 
agining. But that sound was like a mes- 
sage from heaven, and all me doubt of you 
died.” 

Babbie had grown pale. She feared he 
might have seen her on the mountain 
that never-to-be-forgotten night. She 
tried to speak, but he did not wait. 

“It was hard and cruel and mean of 
you to say such things,” he went on. 
“They stuck in me at first like all them 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


163 


bow-arrows in that picture of St. Sebas- 
tian in church. It was like taking the 
statue of a saint from off the altar, and 
daubing mud all over it, and throwing 
stones at it. 

“But one thing is sure; you don’t care 
a row of pins for me, else you wouldn’t 
talk like that to a man you thought any- 
thing of. I guess you stuck me and Rob- 
inson in the same box — two jacks. I 
kin pity him now, looking back. I hope 
you don’t remember the ugly, nasty way 
I talked to you that night. I am mighty 
sorry fer it, as this shows, fer this is my 
third apology.” 

“The only thing I remember, or care 
to remember, of that night,” said Babbie, 
“is the great fun I had in dressing up 
the newspaper chap as a woman, and in 
landing Hannah’s delicious custard on 
Kennedy's face. I scream yet when I 
think of how Dominick looked with bits 
egg all over his sufficiently ugly coun- 
tenance. I feel as grateful to those two 
men as I should feel to comedians who 
furnished me with a pleasant quarter of 
an hour.” 

Higgins was piqued; she had forgotten 


164 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


all about his jealousy; had put it and him 
from her mind as something of not even 
trifling importance. Yet he smiled, as 
he looked down at this vivacious little 
minx, though the forehead over those 
smiling lips was grave and thoughtful. 

“You made a fool of Robinson, I be- 
lieve,” said Higgins. “Love means no- 
thing to you.” 

He looked at her with the eager, plead- 
ing look a hungry dog gives a bone. 

“Love!” she laughed, lightly. “You re- 
member that little show which was given 
for the benefit of our church? The play 
itself was not so very bad, but the little 
song squalled by Mrs. Sharp’s niece be- 
tween the acts was a sorry piece of music. 
Love to me is like that song, and has no 
more bearing on my life than that miser- 
able ballad had on the drama.” 

He never knew how hard it was for her 
to smile just then, as if for her the world 
was an Arcadian summer. 

Farringdon’s southern housetops were 
now in sight. She experienced relief that 
the end of this journey was nigh. It 
was as when the darkness of night in 
which assassins worked, is fading, and 
the meek, dove-like dawn is shedding se- 
curity upon your infested hold. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


THE SEAL BROKEN. 

They at length rounded the curve of 
the mountain, and a train rumbled be- 
hind them. There were two railroad 
tracks, an old and a new, of which the 
new had not yet been used. 

“Come to the new road,” she said, “no 
trains have yet been run on it, the train 
coming must be on the old.” 

Babbie was now babbling away like a 
frivolous brook, talking of everything 
and nothing, while Higgins earnestly 
listened to her. 

Both were oblivious of their surround- 
ings, when suddenly with a roar, the 
train came bursting into view around 
the curve — the first to be run on the 
new track! 

The engine was upon the couple almost 
before they knew it. Higgins caught 
Babbie in his arms. It was too late to 
escape. 

He looked into her eyes, but there was 
no terror there; only love, a woman’s 


166 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


love. The passion which was stamped 
upon and only smoldering in her bosom, 
had burst from its fragile keeps, and 
was blazing in intense lustre. Like light- 
ning, the truth broke upon him, the sweet 
truth that he alone had full possession 
of her young heart. 

“May God have mercy on us both!” he 
heard her whisper, as she flung her arms 
about his neck, and hid her face on his 
breast. 

The train struck him and hurled him, 
with Babbie in his arms, down the clayey 
embankment into the oozy yellow slime 
at its foot. She escaped with a few 
bruises, but he was unconscious. 

She extricated herself from his arms. 
Trembling with fear and love, she opened 
his shirt at the throat, and steeping her 
handkerchief in the water of a little 
stream that was near, she bathed his 
temples until he regained consciousness. 

When Higgins saw light again, the 
heavens he gazed at were Babbie’s anx- 
ious eyes, eyes still bright with love’s 
golden flame. He arose and shook him- 
self. She was all solicitude. He was 
dazed for a moment, then all the past 



w 













•; ' " 






- 























































































































ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


167 


quarter of an hour came back to him. 

“Babbie, Babbie, you are safe?” 

He drew her to him. He was bruised 
and cut, and was bleeding from a small 
wound in the back of his head, but he was 
happy. Babbie tore herself from his arms. 
She was entirely unnerved. 

“Your secret came out, love of my life,” 
he said tenderly. “All that put-on to 
make me think you light-minded and 
unfit to be a man’s wife, is gone like 
smoke. No selfishness in you, Babbie. 
We must marry. Life would be heaven 
for me, and I would try to make it 
heaven for you.” 

“There is Hannah,” she answered. 

He heard the pained quiver in her 
voice. He did not look at her eyes; he 
knew they were full of tears. 

An interval of silence. The leaves were 
rustling with a sound so merry that it ir- 
ritated him ; a daisy at his feet looked up 
into his troubled countenance with so 
bright and cheerful a gaze that he put 
his heel on its gold-crowned head; the 
laurels waved their green branches 
derisively in his direction; the low-toned 
stream sang gayly to the whispering 


168 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


winds. One sportive little silver cloud 
had galloped too far from his fleecy breth- 
ren, and the lambkin was scurrying a- 
across the heavens to rejoin his flock. 

He glanced at Babbie. The undertint, 
a delicate pink like that inside of a sea- 
shell, had gone from her cheeks. Hers 
was now a beauty without glow or glory, 
as if the sunshine had departed from a 
fair field. 

Her little figure was trembling He 
could not stand that. In an instant his 
arms were about her, and he had pres- 
sed her to him. 

He feasted his large blue eyes on her 
face He gazed down into the black 
depths of her eyes — deep down, he felt 
that he could never fathom those depths, 
any more than he could fathom the 
depths of her noble heart. 

His glance took in her low seamless 
brow, from which her dark hair waved 
back; her little retrousse nose, her tempt- 
ing red-cherry lips, the bewitching dimple 
in her ivory chin. 

Breaking from his embrace, she fled 
down a narrow path, her disheveled black 
hair falling, like a silken avalanche, over 
her shoulders. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


169 


“O God, God of mercy!” he heard her 
moan, “take away the curse that is on 
me. I am ill-starred. Mrs. Kelly made 
no mistake when she said I was. Mam 
in heaven, I wish I were with you.” 

Like a bird, she winged her way 
through the brush, through the laurels, 
through thorns and briers that tore her 
white skirt; sank to her ankles in the 
slimy mud, splashed through the shallow 
brook, leaped lightly over a moss- 
covered log, sped through the daisy-em- 
broidered grass. 

She paused near a small pond which 
seemed to take down the cloud-specked 
heaven into its heart. 

There was a thick clump of trees and 
bushes near the pond, and a wild chick- 
en-grape vine climbed among the 
branches of the tall bushes, and hung to 
the limbs of the trees. 

The mining-boys had hollowed out 
this thicket, lopping off the lower branch- 
es, and so forming a kind of grotto 
upon which Calypso herself might not 
have frowned. In this grotto — it ex- 
tended for yards and yards — the men 
and boys would spend many of their 


170 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


leisure hours. There they would lie. 
some on the broad of their backs, some 
on their sides, spinning yarns and crack- 
ing jokes at one another’s expense, while 
the leaves overhead warded off the 
broiling sun. 

Babbie was glad to find the place de- 
serted, and as still as if silence sat there 
to listen to the breezes. Through the 
interwoven branches and foliage over- 
head which formed the dome of a 
Druidic temple not made with hands, 
she looked at the far-away blue serene 
of the morning sky. 

She walked to the water’s edge, and 
gazed down through the crystal at a trio 
of brilliant spotted lizards, and a crab 
that was making quite a fool of himself 
in the mud. How fair and glorious was 
nature just then and there! 

Back into the grotto she glided, look- 
ing like a beautiful Ariadne with her 
unbound tresses. 

Over the face of an age-lined rock 
hung tendrils of youthful ivy, like silky 
strands of hair trying to make young a 
hard old countenance. Down in the 
grass at the foot of the rock she sank, 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


171 


down on the earth, strewn with dew- 
drops, like orient pearls. 

One long sob floated through the grot- 
to, out over the water’s silvery surface, 
and died away. 

Until Babbie vanished, Higgins 
watched her; his eyes seeming to stand 
in his head, his jaws set firm, the skin 
drawn like parchment. 

He felt as if the tomb had closed on 
his love, and no angel’s hand could ever 
roll back the stone. He groaned with 
exquisite misery; and at the sound, the 
stream of water, a few yards off, whim- 
pered pityingly among the sedges, while 
the high-elbowed grasshoppers ceased for 
a second their merry dancing. 

Then the train men came upon him. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


IN THE EXTERNAL AND THE 
INTERNAL FORUM. 

“Pap,” said Babbie, as he and she sat 
at the breakfast table, while Hannah was 
at the bake-oven, “I must go away. I 
can’t stay home now.” 

The old man choked. 

“Don’t fear, I shall not turn out bad; 
won’t go to the dogs, body and soul, as 
every one is foretelling, even though I 
am far from your protecting arms . Be- 
sides, in the city Rose can watch me; 
and then some day in the future, your 
dove and raven will fly back to you; the 
dove as soon as the strike is over; the 
raven as soon as Hannah is married, and 
has her own house. 

“Pap,” tears were in his eyes, "I have 
learned a lesson. Though I can’t be any- 
thing but what I am, still I have too much 
of my dead and gone mother in me ever 
to go very far astray — that mother whom 
I never saw. Your honor is as white as 
your hair, daddy dear, and Babbie will 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


173 


never put a blemish on that honor. Con- 
rad Miller placed a wedding-ring on my 
finger, when our train stopped at Phila- 
delphia. ” 

“You look like your mother, dear,” re- 
plied the old man, with brimming eyes. 
“And I am not crying because I think 
you will bring disgrace on me ; no, I hate 
to let you go from me.” 

“It is the only way.” 

“But he has not married Hannah yet. 
You kin keep out of his road as much 
as possible. When he marries, then — but 
stay home now.” 

He looked keenly at her from under 
his bushy eyebrows. Babbie’s counte- 
nance had betrayed her. 

“Child, child, tell your old dad; have 
no secret from him; do you care for Ned 
Higgins?” 

“Pap!” Agony wrung the secret from 
her. “I love Ned Higgins so well that I 
believe if he should lay his hand on me, 
cold and dead, my still pulses would a- 
wake, and come to life again. I love 
him as mam must have loved you. That 
is why I go away.” 

She was like a poor prisoner holding 


174 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


her death-warrant . The hand she laid 
on her father’s was as heavy as a lump 
of lead. 

“But he shall make Hannah his 
wife. ’Twould be like stripping the dead 
to take her wedding-ring from her . No, 
no, I cannot warm my cold heart in Han- 
nah’s lifeblood.” 

Babbie went to the window, and looked 
over the hollyhocks and blue and white 
phlox at Hannah, who was standing, like 
a female Laocoon, among a string of 
stockings which flew from the clothes’ 
line. Her father followed Babbie. 

A slow, heavy bumblebee was buzzing 
in the calyx of a hollyhock, and a hum- 
ming bird, like a flash of light, was quiver- 
ing from flower to flower. The blue phlox 
seemed to be destitute of food, for the 
humming bird, in a perfect fury, was 
tearing one of the blossoms to pieces . 

“How selfish is that little bird!” said 
Babbie softly. “Just like me. I am a 
kind of queen bee— or better, a drone, set 
upon a throne of wax and fed, while 
Hannah is that poor hard-working buz- 
zer out there. ” 

Hannah at this juncture entered. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


175 


Her hair was twisted up in curl-papers, 
the front of her head done up in small 
rolls. Hannah’s frizzes were her only 
vanity. Now the strands of hair were 
twined about the bits of paper so tight- 
ly that the skin of her forehead was 
drawn taut, and the veins on her tem- 
ples stood out plainly. Even to look at 
her in that plight made one’s head ache, 
and brought vividly to mind the tor- 
tures of the early martyrs. Hannah, to 
complete her coiffure, had made use of 
half the front sheet of the local paper. 
On one little knob of hair appeared the 
word STRIKE — as if Hannah was the 
walking shibboleth of the strikers. Babbie 
laughed, and her father, puzzled, looked 
at her. This strange child of his was 
ready for laughter at any moment. 

Saturday night saw Babbie Conway 
enter Father Brady’s confessional. 

The women outside wondered why she 
stayed so long. They could hear her 
sobbing, and the priest speaking softly 
to her. Mrs. Dormer winked slyly at old 
Mrs. Kelly, and whispered in a shrill 
voice which could be heard for yards, 
and sounded as if it came from a split 
reed: 


176 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“He’s laying it into her; she’s a bad 
one. Good for her we have sich a 
priest.” 

Father Brady’s heart was pouring 
forth a flood of sympathy into the poor 
young beaten tempted soul. And this 
penitent was the bold brazen girl who 
was the talk of the parish! 

Alas, how ready we are with our judg- 
ments! Sinless ourselves, forsooth, how 
prompt we are to cast the stone! 

The vileness in our own hearts causes 
us to pass unmerciful sentence on our 
delinquent neighbor; to give him credit 
for no better intention than our purblind 
eyes can see in his work; to construe 
his action as unfavorably as possible. 

It cannot be, to our thinking, that under 
the indifferent or seemingly bad sur- 
face, there may be a hidden good. 
Faults are more readily seen than vir- 
tues; our eyes look at the exterior only. 

In a thousand places, deserted and thorn- 
choked to the eyes of men, there are 
blooming, modest and lovely, the violets 
of secret goodness and virtues. We for- 
get that pearl seekers find their jewels 
in coarse, homely shells. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


177 


More often wrong than right, we go 
on blundering in our judgments; quite 
consistent, but quite incapable of learn- 
ing; experience has taught us nothing. 

Sad news awaited Babbie on her re- 
turn from the church. Hannah sat 
weeping, with Mrs. Sharp by her side, 
Mrs. Sharp’s face being a very “title- 
page of tribulation.” 

Babbie was cheerful ; about her 
there was an air of sunset calm; the 
consciousness of her confession’s 
integrity and the heart-soothing words 
of the confessor were balm to her soul. 
A sentence of the revered priest’s was 
in her memory: 

"God never calls his faithful children 
into the gloom of Gethsemane without 
having first stationed close at hand some 
strengthening angel.” 

"Oh, oh!” wailed Mrs. Sharp, with 
that sort of temporary importance which 
a bearer of bad news feels herself to 
have. "Your pap has been took by 
them blasted scabs. Oh, oh! Dominick 
Kennedy and some of them boys wreck- 
ed a car of victuals going to them, the 
dogs, and like the cowards every man 


178 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


of them is, they were afeared to tackle 
the young lads, so what did they do but 
grab your poor pap as he was walking 
near, as innocent as a babe unborn, 
afterwards. Oh, oh!” 

“And where is pap now?” 

“Up at Overbeck, I hear. The scabs 
have him in their cars, and on Monday 
are going to take him to jail. Oh, he’ll 
get years. He’ll die in jail, for he’s too 
old and weak to stand the disgrace and 
it will kill him. Oh, oh ! The rich man 
Dives” — pronounced as a monosyllable — 
“kin always prosecute to death the poor 
beggar Lazarus, who had to lay with the 
dogs that were full of sores, and were 
glad to eat the crumbs the big-bellied 
glutton let fall. Oh, oh!” 

Mrs. Sharp rocked to and fro. 

Babbie, with a groan, staggered against 
the wall. 

She had meant to be brave, very brave 
for the time to come; to be a veritable 
Judith at heart; to put Higgins once and 
for all out of her life, and to live for her 
father only. 

Now she felt her power, physical and 
moral, ebbing from her; her burden in- 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


179 


creasing in inverse ratio to her strength . 
Was her old father, her shield, to be 
snatched away from her, the palladium 
of her life, the talisman to keep off temp- 
tation? 

She was like a wounded Penthesilea, 
and her sorrows, like cowardly foes, piled 
upon her, as her heart got weak, and her 
blood departed; one woe was treading 
upon another’s heel. This was her sor- 
row’s crown of sorrow. 

The sisters slept little that dreary Sat- 
urday night, and were up with the dawn. 

Babbie’s heart had a faint hope hid- 
den away in it, but that hope she must 
not speak of to the dear, sorrowing one 
beside her. Her purpose was a mad one, 
but succeed it must and should. She 
would not permit herself to think of fail- 
ure . The soul of Antigone shone in 
Babbie’s eyes. 

Hannah was too grief-stricken to notice 
her sister’s abstraction. 

Silently they sat at the open window 
of their bedroom, the fresh morning air, 
burdened with fragrant incense, blowing 
on their faces, and streams of gold flowing 
over the eastern hills — hills suffused with 


180 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


blushes under the radiant, piercing eye 
of the sun. 

The flowers were breaking their ala- 
baster boxes of ointment to anoint the feet 
of their lord . A band of tiny insects were 
swallowing the sunbeams, and weaving 
and unweaving the mazes of their fan- 
tastic dance, to the music of their own 
slender flutes. The morning mists, like 
so many modest fairies, were slowly, 
gracefully gathering their cobweb robes 
about their long, slender forms, and were 
trailing away — away from the creek 
and the coal banks, away from the 
meadows and the homes. The birds, 
jewels on fire with music, had burst spon- 
taneously into a Sabbath hymn of praise. 

All the world seemed one great song 
on that Sunday morn; but the sisters had 
no partin the jubilee. 

Little Jackine Sharp and Babbie had 
always been friends, for many a penny 
she gave him . He served her well now. 

“Jackine,” she whispered, pressing a 
two-dollar bill into his hand, “are you a 
coward?” 

“Not on your life,” replied the stalwart 
little chap, expanding his chest and stretch- 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


181 


ing himself to his full height, “no more 
nor me dad is.” 

“Well, spend every cent of this for cig- 
arettes at Mrs. Kelly’s. Go in the back 
way for her shop is locked on Sundays, 
you know. Then — but you are not a- 
fraid, are you?” 

He gave her a reproachful look. 

“Then go to the scabs at Overbeck 
and sell the cigarettes to them. Keep 
twenty-five cents of the money you make, 
and, O Jackine,” she put her arms around 
him, “don’t come back without some news 
of pap; Hannah and I shall die if you 
do.” 

“Jackine Sharp ain’t no slouch,” he 
said, with the air of a crusader. “You 
kin depend on him.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS. 

Mrs. Kelly had some interesting gos* 
sip for Mrs. Dormer that fair Sunday 
afternoon . 

“Good Lord," said the vinegar- visaged 
storekeeper, “Babbie Conway must be fast 
going to nothing. Why, she sent Sharp’s 
little boy here to buy her cigarettes. I 
wormed it out of him. I told him he 
couldn’t have them , ’less he told me who 
wanted them. And how many, God save 
the mark! but two dollars’ worth.” 

Mrs. Kelly’s voice raised in a scream. 

“I knew no good would come out of 
her,” rejoined Mrs. Dormer. “If my girls 
were like her, I’d smash ’em.” 

“Well,” said Mrs. Kelly, “fer once in 
me life, I am going to do a good turn. 

I intend here and now to go up to Han- 
nah Conway, and tell her of the high 
jinks her sister is cutting up. Smoking 
cigarettes, and poor people’s children 
starving for the want of bread.” 

“Faith, I’ll be with you,” returned 
Mrs. Dormer, with alacrity. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


183 


In a brief time, they were in the 
Conway parlor. 

Mrs. Kelly, whose skirts were wet, 
having draggled through a muddy ditch, 
swish-swashed to a rocker, and ensconced 
herself in it. With a slight lisp, for 
she had broken her sole remaining front 
tooth, she told her tale in the sad tone 
of a young inexperienced preacher des- 
canting on the Prodigal Son or the Mag- 
dalene. 

“Babbie did not; she does not smoke,” 
declared Hannah Conway, indignantly. 
“It is a base, foul lie. Babbie would 
not spend money that way when mon- 
ey is scarcer than hen’s teeth. I tell 
you she does not smoke.” 

“Call me a liar, do!” screamed Mrs. 
Kelly, just as Babbie entered the par- 
lor. “Do you deny,” she demanded of 
Babbie, “kin you deny, that you bought 
two dollars’ worth of cigarettes to-day, 
— this Lord’s blessed Sunday?” 

“You women here?” responded Babbie, 
coldly. “Job’s comforters, leave this 
house. ” 

“With the greatest of pleasures,” there 
was iron in Mrs. Kelly’s smile, “fer your 


184 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


presence is like carrion; it perlutes the 
air.” 

”0 miserable harpies, these black old 
coal regions are only the blacker, for 
having such foul birds of ill omen here. 
Scandal is your delight. What matters 
it to you that you are feeding on hu- 
man hearts and souls?” 

“Babbie Conway, ’tis yourself kin talk,” 
chimed in Mrs. Dormer. “You have 
given us plenty of scandal to chat about, 
and we are ever so much obliged to you. 
I guess the Lord is afflicting your saint- 
ly old father fer your sins. The sins of 
the fathers is visited on the heads of 
the children, but in this case, things are 
reversed and turned; the father suffers 
fer the child.” 

“Sins of the fathers,” retorted Babbie. 
“ I t’s a blessing that the sins of the mothers 
don’t come down, else I would tremble 
for your babies.” 

Mrs. Kelly made an effort to speak, 
but Mrs. Dormer was too quick for her, 
and much against her will, Mrs. Kelly 
was forced to play the role of listener. 

“Don’t try to stop her, Mrs. Kelly,” 
said Mrs. Dormer, smiling an iron smile. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


185 


“Let her go on. We can’t keep step with 
herself that has book-larning and ed- 
decation. She talks like an alarm clock. 
You might as well try to attempt to hold 
a wagon that has started to run away 
down hill. But, thanks be to God! the 
saints were not eddecated, and the devil 
never yet made use of a numbskull.” 

“You women,” continued Babbie, “re- 
mind me of ravens waiting beside a dy- 
ing sheep to begin their foul banquet. 
Like hyenas, you drag from their graves 
the very bones of the dead, and feed on 
the reputation that is forgotton. You 
are all eyes, all ears, all tongue. The 
bite of the gnat, the sting of the wasp, 
the blow of the serpent — that is your con- 
versation. ” 

“Sure,” said Mrs. Kelly, with a grimace, 
“it keeps me one poor tongue working 
over time to tell all me two eyes sees in 
you.” 

Hannah sprang to her feet in anger . 

“Go out of this house,” she cried; 
“don’t make light of my mourning and my 
little sister’s. We’re alone to-day; there 
is only the two of us girls here, her and 
me, and you might remember we are 


186 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


motherless, you that are mothers your- 
selves, and have daughters of your own. 
Isn’t it bad enough that we should lose 
our father, the best friend we have on 
earth — the one who took God’s place for 
us, without you taunting us?” 

“Hannah, I’m sorry for you,” said Mrs. 
Dormer, “but,” with a frown at Babbie, 
“that one — ” 

“That one is trying to keep from 
throwing something at your head,” 
Babbie broke in, “so you had better fly; 
I may yield to the temptation, and my 
aim is good. Rumor can’t be very far 
astray when it says that your tongue 
tripped over your only tooth, while you 
were dishing out scandal, and broke off 
that pearl of great price. Old hen, it will 
be a relief to this village when you cease 
to kick up a dust, looking for a juicy 
worm of scandal, and you have gone to 
the everlasting roast-pan.” 

Mrs. Kelly had cautiously withdrawn 
to the porch, but through the open door- 
way, she cast back a Parthian shot. 

“I guess your aim ought to be good,” 
said she. “You had plenty of practice 
— on your dead husband.” 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


187 


Mrs. Kelly promptly vanished behind 
the big, spreading lilac tree, and the gate 
was heard to open. But Mrs. Dormer 
remained unrouted. 

“I guess the happiest day Conrad 
Miller had was the day he died, and got 
away from you,” she sneered. ‘‘Good-bye. 
I’ll say an act of contrition as I go, fer 
there telling what you won’t preject at 
me harmless head.” 

Her substantial form creaked down the 
steps. 

That was Babbie’s last draught of 
wordy vinegar from the hands of Mrs. 
Dormer. 

“Babbie,” said Hannah, “why did you 
put on that black dress? I thought you 
had laid it off fer good.” 

“I thought so, too, but to-day I was 
in such a mood that black seemed fit- 
ting. Cheer up, sister, daddy will get 
out of this scrape; his good name will 
help and save him.” 

“Oh, do you think so?” 

“I know so.” 

“Babbie, those two women seem to 
hate you. Why, they told me that to- 
day Sharp’s little boy bought two dol- 


188 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


lars’ worth of cigarettes fer you at Mrs. 
Kelly’s store. They wanted me to be- 
lieve even that.” 

“By accident, they sometimes tell the 
truth. I did get the cigarettes.” 

“You did!” 

“Yes, and then I gave the boy twenty- 
five cents for himself. I want to get 
tidings from pap, so I have sent the lit- 
tle chap, who is pluck itself, to the quar- 
ters of the strike-breakers at Overbeck . 
He is selling the cigarettes, and trying 
to find out pap’s location.” 

“Babbie, how wise you are! How peo- 
ple misjudge you!” Hannah put her 
arms about Babbie’s neck and kissed 
her. “Old Mrs. Kelly has much to 
answer for when she slanders you, you 
with your heart of gold.” 

“Her slandering tongue pains me, pains 
me sometimes more than I care to say, 
but what pains me most are the eager, 
listening ears. Then when people give 
me too much room to pass!” 

Never was an afternoon longer to 
Babbie. The golden day was fading 
and turning gray, but the hours seemed 
to loiter. She sat at her bedroom win- 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


189 


dow, scanning the east, waiting, watch- 
ing, fearing. Hannah and Ned Higgins 
were downstairs in the front room; he 
pouring out consolation, she drinking it 
in like a thirsty doe . Babbie had fled at 
his approach. 

A dusty little boy in the distance, 
running and panting. Babbie flew to 
the gate and beckoned wildly. 

“He’s there! He’s there!” the boy 
shouted. “They are six cars all in a 
row, and he is in the last one, the near- 
est to Overbeck. And, O Babbie, he’s 
tied hand and foot. I don’t think he 
got nothing to eat, for the men ain’t 
working to-day, but are drinking, and 
some is drunk.” 

Babbie put her arms swiftly and si- 
lently about the child, and kissed him. 
He pressed a handful of loose change 
into her palm, but the money fell un- 
heeded to the floor. 

A moment before, she had been a per- 
fect Mara of bitterness; now she was a 
beautiful Naomi, filled with expectation 
and hope. Her countenance was full of 
light, like the summer heavens when 
suddenly freed from the heavy veiling 
clouds of storm. 


CHAPTER XX. 


CORDELIA. 

Hannah was sound asleep; Babbie 
made sure of that. 

Why did she stoop and kiss the home- 
ly face? Why did she pass her hands in 
gentle, loving touches over the curl-pa- 
pered head? She could not tell. 

She got cold and nervous for a sec- 
ond, because the old house seemed to 
breathe farewell to her. “Good-bye! 
good-bye!” ticked out the rusty aged 
clock . Her mother’s picture on the wall 
seemed to smile, oh, so sadly, and say, 
“Adieu, adieu!” 

She paused for a second in the gar- 
den, for the grass under the clothes’ line 
was stirring, and something white was 
moving toward her. Then she felt a 
velvety tongue lick her hand, and the 
neighbor’s big white hound looked up at 
her. He whined piteously, and jumping 
up, laid his paws on her, as if he wish- 
ed her to stay. His sad cry made her 
shudder. With a gentle “Go away, 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


191 


King!” she pushed him from her, stealth- 
ily opened the gate, and whispered to 
her pet mule. 

It was but the work of a minute to 
untie the vagrant old mule that she had 
tethered that evening to the tree behind 
the garden. Thank God! the night was 
of Stygian darkness ; no moon, not a tiny 
star; the heavens seemed to have put on 
sackcloth. 

Could she reach Overbeck before day- 
break? She must, she should. 

Some Farringdon matrons peeped from 
their windows, as the old mule clattered 
by, but no eye noticed the little black 
figure crouching on his back, and whisper- 
ing to him. 

“It’s a shame for him to be running 
loose,” said Mrs. Dormer, bitterly; “but 
Babbie Conway has the poor beast as 
crazy as herself. The girl would have 
the lower regions upsot, if she was there. 
Sure, her mother in heaven would have 
gray hair, and turn in her grave, if she 
cud see her.” 

And Mrs. Dormer drew in from the 
window her face, which was shining, 
smooth, and expressionless, like a tea- 
kettle. 


192 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“Such a hole as this Farringdon,” said 
Mrs. Sharp, who had heard the noise, 
but could see nothing. “You might 
screw the eyes out of your head, and get 
no glimpse of anything, never a light in 
the town. Sure, if you fell in a ditch, and 
cracked your neck at night, no one would 
find you till morning. One would need 
to be an owl or a bat to live in Farring- 
don at night.” 

Along the railroad went the mule and 
his fearless rider, over the cinders, the 
iron shoes striking sparks from a switch, 
and stumbling over the splintery ties, till 
the railroad was crossed by the turnpike . 

Then Babbie followed the highway, the 
thick, heavy dust smothering the thud of 
the hoofs. Over the loosely-boarded old 
bridge, under which slumbered the sul- 
phur creek, like a green snake. 

She tore along the deserted road, skirt- 
ed on either side by low huckleberry 
bushes, and shaded by tall pines and oaks, 
matted with the climbing wild grape and 
ivy parasites. 

In the dense woods, a hound tongued 
after a bounding hare, and his deep voice 
echoed along the hills . Through the 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


193 


trees, she guided on the mule, along a 
narrow path, where the low branches tore 
at her hair, and tried to pull her from her 
seat; through the forest, startling the birds 
in their nests; without a moment’s pause, 
as if the brute felt what was in the 
maiden’s heart, and sympathized with 
her. 

Babbie was praying, not for herself — 
it didn’t matter about her — but for her 
father; fervent little ejaculations which 
that well-loved father had taught her at 
his knee in the sweet years agone — pray- 
ers which ever since rose sponta- 
neously to her lips in every moment of 
distress. 

She saw faint lights in the distance. 
Nearer and nearer they came, larger and 
brighter. She peered ahead through the 
darkness, with the eager eyes of a ship- 
wrecked mariner seeking a sail. 

Over the brow of a little hill; through 
a lakelet in the road, left reluctantly at 
sundown by a trio of ducks, which had 
made of it a temporary pond. She was 
at Overbeck, and no sign of dawn. 

She tied the mule to a tree, and stole 
quietly toward the enemy’s camp. She 


194 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


left the road, and walked where the grass 
and weeds were high and thick and rank. 
A thistle pierced her hand, and left some 
of its down upon her black skirt. With 
the skill of an Alpine climber, she picked 
her way among long, heavy pipes, chok- 
ed with rust; among greasy, foul oil bar- 
rels. 

She was close to a line of box cars. 
Her soul smiled in her breast, at the 
thought of her father so near, though 
her face was as sad as the grave. 

There were lights in the boiler-house, 
which looked like a huge dragon hissing 
in its sleep, but that was some distance 
beyond the cars. 

She had no weapon, save the small 
penknife in her hand, and she was almost 
in the midst of low, unscrupulous men, 
but her heart failed her not. On hands 
and knees she crawled over the railroad. 
She neared the last car, trembling, not 
with fear, but with anxiety. If he 
should not be there! 

At that thought, a fit of trembling 
took her, and she fell flat upon her face. 
A moan was stifled and crushed on a 
railroad tie. To fail in her search would 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


195 


almost kill her. She knew she would 
rend the skies with her disappointed 
screams. 

She almost prayed God to work a mi- 
racle, to strike her enemies blind, or 
render her invisible, till her search was 
ended. Courage came to her, and she 
slid around the car. 

“Pap!” she whispered through the 
open doorway. “Are you there?” 

No answer but the hiss of the boiler- 
house, which seemed to gloat over her 
misery. 

“Pap!” 

She had climbed into the car. 

“Here is Babbie. O pap, darling, 
speak to me!” 

She heard a footstep outside the car, 
a man’s; a light was coming closer. In 
an agony of dread, she sank down in a 
corner of the car, drew her black shawl 
over her head and face, and held her 
breath. 

For a second, which seemed an age 
to Babbie, she heard the footsteps pause 
outside the car, and then through her 
thin shawl, she could see a light flash 
in at the open doorway. She pressed 


196 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


her hand to her heart, as if to hush its 
loud beating. 

How slow and leaden-footed the 
seconds were, as they dragged, dragged 
away, one by one, slower and slower — 
just like the old clock at midnight which, 
when she was sick, seemed to tick the 
more slowly, as if to reproach her for her 
impatient listening! 

“Hum, the ole feller’s asleep,” said a 
coarse, liquor-fuddled voice. 

Then the footsteps sounded farther a- 
way. 

Like an arrow, Babbie darted to the 
other end of the car, and knelt by her 
father. 

“Pap, pap, it’s Babbie.” 

She was caressing and kissing his face. 
Now she had snipped with her little knife 
the cords that bound his hands and feet. 
She put her arm about him, and lifted him 
to a sitting posture. He stood up, but 
staggered, and would have fallen, only for 
her sustaining arm ; he was very weak, and 
his limbs were stiff. 

“Not a sound, pap; there is one of the 
men near.” 

She peeped out and listened, but could 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


197 


see no light, and could hear the footsteps 
no longer. She sprang lightly from the 
car. Her father was not slow to follow. 
Trembling and holding their breath, they 
groped their way through the darkness. 

Every crackle of the ashes under their 
feet almost caused Babbie to shriek aloud, 
so great was the tension on her nerves. 
When she heard the mule moving around, 
she almost danced with glee. Her father 
was about to lift her to the faithful crea- 
ture’s back, when a light flashed near 
them, and Babbie saw a man come out 
of a small powder house. 

“Get on the mule, pap,” was her hoarse 
whisper, “and I’ll climb up behind you.” 

The mule started away, with Babbie 
clinging to her father. 

“Halt, or I’ll shoot! ’’came the same 
liquor-fuddled voice. 

“Goad the mule on, pap.” 

Babbie was glad to be between her father 
and the deputy. She raised her head that 
it might protect his. 

Crack! A pistol shot. A little cry from 
the girl. 

“Merciful God, child, did he hit you?” 

“No, 'pap dearest, only frightened me. 


198 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Thank God, we are out of his reach 
now!” 

Away sped the mule, his clumsy hoofs 
beating the old wooden bridge like 
cannon-balls, kicking up clouds of dust 
that blinded and choked his riders. 
Along the road, where the trees leaned 
lovingly down, and caressed with their 
cool leaves the hot faces of the father 
and daughter. On, on, farther and 
farther from Overbeck and the “scabs.” 

Peter Conway was out of danger now; 
he need fear no pursuit. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


THE ETERNAL SUNRISE. 

The stars had unveiled themselves. 
Now they were growing dimmer, and 
the trees beginning to grow plainer. 
The morning sky was all tinted with 
pearly hues from the unrisen sun. The 
woods, like a mighty altar, were send- 
ing up to heaven clouds of incense from 
their bosom, while tiny birds, mere vo- 
cal sparks, sang and chirped the matin 
hymns. In the distance, the coal banks 
seemed a brotherhood of venerable monks 
making meditation. 

Farringdon was near. 

“Let us get off, and rest a little,” 
said Babbie, in a tone of pain. 

There were a spring and brook near 
the road, and the grass was like vel- 
vet. Wild flowers bloomed all about, 
and the air was heavy with the sweet 
morning dew. 

Peter Conway leaped off the mule, and 
reached out his arms for Babbie. Not 
a moment too soon; her face was like 


200 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


death, and she was falling. Her dark 
skirt was soaked with blood, and blood 
gushed from her bosom. 

A mad burst of grief from the strong 
old father, like a lion that sees his little 
offspring dying from the hunter’s wound. 
Gently he laid her on the velvety sward. 
No need for words from her lips; her 
face told him the truth. He lifted her 
to his bosom, when he realized her con- 
dition . 

“O Babbie, don’t luk that way,” he 
sobbed; “your mam luked that way 
when she left me.” 

Open flew the lovely dark eyes, full 
of a new light now, full of a new beauty. 

“Pap, oh, pap, I never thought it 
was so sweet to die; I never thought 
the gateway of death could be so 
beautiful, so much of a triumphal arch. 
I have been dying for the last ten min- 
utes. I kept quiet till you were out of 
danger.” 

Years before a learned theologian who 
has left us weighty tomes, said those self- 
same words: “I never thought it was 
so sweet to die.” Death lays us all 
on the same bed ; there is no distinction 
when the great angel comes. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


201 


“It’s for the best, pap.” 

She held his hands tightly with her 
poor chill little fingers, ah, so pitifully 
weak now. 

“I am ill-starred; remember old Mrs. 
Kelly’s words ; I was born for misfortune. 
You remember that bad egg, pap, out 
of which came the diseased little pee- 
pee. That was Babbie. Pap, you 
have three daughters. Two of them 
will get married, and give you their 
husbands and children to love; the 
black sheep will die. Isn’t God wise?” 

“You haven’t did much wrong. What 
you did do you have wiped out.” 

“Did I wash the sin away? Oh, I am 
glad — glad. Pap, I never was like the 
other girls, and then that marriage of 
mine. I was always a thorn in the flesh 
to you, though you wouldn’t admit it. 
Everything went wrong, dear pap. It 
seemed I couldn’t help my wildness; it 
was in me. Everywhere I planted, 
briars came up. 

“And I am madly in love with Ned 
Higgins. You don’t know what a 
struggle I had to give him up. I could 
resist him that night, but I am sure I 


202 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


could not later. If he looked at me, 
my resolutions would be like wax be- 
fore the fire. Pap, there was ever a 
devil in me as big as a bull. I never 
was one of the Oh-be-good sort of 
girls,” she said, with a boy’s frankness. 

He smiled sadly, and stroked her hair. 
No word was spoken for several min- 
utes. 

The sun was rising on the world , 
putting out the stars with his ruddy 
hand ,and shedding his glorious light 
through the trees afar off in the east; 
and here was the sun of this sad young 
life setting so rapidly. 

Now a bright-winged little bird, 
God’s tiny prophet, perched on the 
bough above, and poured forth a song 
full of wild, sweet melody. It was a 
fitting dirge for wild little Babbie. 
Perhaps the golden-voiced songster was 
recounting the epic of that brief life, 
his strains were poetic, as if he were 
trying to hide the terrible realism of it 
all. 

“Pap” — how weak and hoarse her 
voice was! “I made a splendid confes- 
sion on Saturday. I told the priest 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


203 


every sin I had ever committed, and he 
was so kind. And the Holy Com- 
munion I received yesterday, the 
blessed memory of it clings to me still. 
Ask dear old Father Brady to read a 
Mass for me as soon as he can. Help 
me to say a good act of contrition, and 
oh, hold me tight; I am slipping away 
from you.” 

Peter Conway said something, but 
his voice was so broken with emotion 
that the words were lost to her ear — 
as if a strong, far-off bell on a moun- 
tain peak swung out its melody to a 
storm . 

“Dad, yours must be the last face I 
see here, and mine shall be the first for 
you to see beyond the grave.” 

Her eyes smiled, though her lips did 
not; andjlike a lost, weary, storm-driven 
deer, she nestled to him. 

The pitying death angel looked down 
into the black eyes, and there saw the 
holy smile; looked down into the 
depths of the soul, from which all earth 
stains had departed; he looked for a 
second, and that smile became fixed 
forevermore. 


204 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


Louder and sweeter grew the song of 
the tiny bird; he seemed to be singing 
his little life out. Everything was 
hushed but his song and the music of 
the brook. Now he spread his wings 
and vanished, but his song floated be- 
hind him like a thread of purest gold. 

“That bird was her soul,” murmured 
the father, kissing the irresponsive lips, 
and then falling on the grass by the 
white, beautiful face. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE PROPHET IS WITHOUT 
HONOR IN HIS OWN 
COUNTRY. 

More than one eye was wet, as the 
account of the heroic little mine girl’s 
death was read . The writer had 
brought sympathy to the very end of 
his pen; every word he wrote came 
from his agitated heart. It was Asa 
Robinson. 

He had not forgotten the lovely, 
saucy, piquant face and the dainty little 
nose with its upward curve, the soft 
mouth, as sweet as if flower-born dew 
rested on it, and the warm, fearless, 
boyish little heart. An attar of roses 
clung about her memory for the report- 
er. 

He wrote well the columns on her 
pitiful end, running, in romantic fashion, 
over her short life, “from its fated birth 
to its grandly mournful close.” His 
crusty old editor, to whom kind words 


206 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


were an unknown quantity, compli- 
mented him. 

Poor little Babbie, did the angels tell 
her of her posthumous fame; of the 
Joan of Arc character her action had 
given her? 

Did she know that her bravery had 
carried her from the hollows in the val- 
ley of life, and placed her on a moun- 
tain peak, where every eye, even the 
eye of her enemies, might see? That 
the voice of slander was silent forever- 
more — slander whose edge is sharper 
than the sword, whose tongue outven- 
oms all the worms of vile? 

But what cared that marble brow for 
laurel? What cared those motionless 
feet for the broken alabaster box and 
its spikenard contents? 

Honor’s voice cannot provoke the silent 
dust, the breath of flattery cannot 
soothe the dull, cold ear of death; the 
lustreless eye views not the pomp of 
banners. Honor, that pilgrim gray, 
could but deck the turf that wrapped 
the clay of the little girl . 

Alone with Hannah and Ned Higgins, 
the father told them of Babbie’s love. 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


207 


"She asked me that her love might 
be a link to hold you two together,” he 
said. ‘And she told me that if God 
took her to Heaven, and she could see 
you, she would be happier.” 

Then there was a silence, great as the 
silence of the grave. 

Hannah’s bosom heaved with a sob. 
Higgins took her work-hardened hand, 
kissed it reverently, and without a word, 
went from the house, into the green 
gloom of the forest. 

Lines of suffering were cut into his 
brow as with a knife. He paused for a 
second by the boys’ swimming pool, 
round about which wheeled a gaudy 
dragon fly. A pair of frogs splashed 
from the bank down to their homes in 
the mud. 

A convolvulus vine ran wild among 
the grasses and weeds, its many slender 
tentacles holding the frail blades in an 
octopus grip. A band of pleasure-seek- 
ing grasshoppers did a cancan on the 
grass, while three showy butterflies flit- 
ted about the morning glory’s cups. 

A wasp, with an ominous buzz, whir- 
red past Higgins’ ear. A hoary spider 


208 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


scuttled almost under his feet, looking 
like a bad actor in the role of King 
Lear. Bunches of fox-grapes thrust 
their laughing faces from their green 
attire. The blue sky, brightly peeping 
through the fantastic tendril garlands of 
the vine, showed its countenance in the 
water’s cool. 

Hours after found Higgins journeying 
on in the blazing sun over huge, mossy 
rocks, hail-hammered and rain-beaten 
by the winters and summers of centu- 
ries; and sharp crags, like horrid teeth; 
and rotten stumps, full of fungi and 
lichens. Here and there, bunches of 
scraggy ferns sprouted up. 

The stones were hot under Higgins’ 
feet. The heavens were bare of clouds, 
which had fled, like frightened nymphs, 
from the brazen sun. A bird, like a soli- 
tary ship, was sailing in the sky. Two 
lone flowerets, like the lost Babes in the 
Woods, were clinging together, their frail 
roots fastened in the crack of a stone. 

Higgins was now miles from Farringdon. 

He had fled away as a mother might 
flee from the empty crib of her dead 
child. Oh, that little grave in the church- 
yard which held his all ! 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


209 


A tinkle, like a tiny bell; he had dis- 
turbed a rattlesnake resting among the 
rocks, and the reptile had given fair warn- 
ing. Dazed, he looked at the flashing, 
diamond eyes, hissing forked tongue, and 
coiled magnificence of the creature; then 
quickly seized a switch, and struck the 
glistening form once, twice. A distorted, 
agonized, twisted mass beat the rocks. 

In that moment, Higgins was sorry. 

“Poor wild thing,” he muttered, “why 
didn’t I leave it escape? It wouldn’t have 
harmed me, and it warned me to keep 
out of danger. Well, I’ll end its misery.” 

A few more lashes of the switch, and 
Higgins put his heel on the snake’s head . 

Then he sat on a flat rock, tossed a- 
way his hat, and looked at the heavens, 
as a young eagle might have done. 
His face was cold and hard, and full of 
lines, left there by his thoughts, as 
water congeals in the bitter wintertide. 

“Murdered!” he groaned, “oh, to 
think she was murdered! I wish to God 
I knowed the skunk what done it, 
and he would be deader than that snake . 
That poor brute didn’t deserve its 
death, though, and I wish I hadn’t to 


210 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


kill it. Maybe it was trying to protect 
its young helpless ones, like she did her 
ole daddy. 

“But it was a glorious end for her, and 
it set her right with everybody, even 
those what didn’t like her. Dominick 
Kennedy cried his eyes out. Such a 
memory as it left of her, pure and fresh 
and sweet, like a flower what had died. 
But, oh, if I could have saw her only 
once more, to have said only a word!” 

A long pause, while in a pine tree 
near, the wind sobbed, like a woman 
weeping over the lifeless clay of one she 
loved . 

“The Scripture says we can’t do more 
than lay down our lives for our friends, 
but she did; she, and her a woman, laid 
down her love, and gave away her life.” 

Then the stoic, the strong miner, 
pounding the stone with hands as hard 
as the stone itself, fell face downward 
on the rock, and cried and sobbed as if 
his heart would break, or his throat 
would burst. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


YEARS LATER. 

Hannah Higgins, with her broad- 
shouldered husband at her side, and her 
black-eyed little baby in her arms, 
stands at the gate waiting for her fa- 
ther. The old man takes the little girl 
to his breast, and she pulls his beard. 

“Babbie’s been a-watching for you this 
last hour,” says the mother. “She ain’t 
been contented with me or Ned.” 

The old man, happy and hearty, dandles 
the child ; then into his eyes there comes 
a wistful look, as he thinks of the Babbie 
after whom this babe has been named; 
the original, fascinating, vivacious, tender- 
hearted, romping little hoyden who once 
was his Babbie, the girl who now stands 
in a heroine’s niche, whose name is rev- 
erenced by the country round. 

He goes into the house, leaving the 
husband and wife at the gate. 

“The baby always makes me think of 
her,” says the wife, pausing on the porch. 
“Our little one has her face and eyes and 
every motion of her.” 


212 


ILL-STARRED BABBIE 


“Maybe,” answers the simple big 
husband, “she knowed when our child 
was leaving heaven, and coming to us, 
and she breathed her saint’s blessing upon 
it. I was mighty glad the baby wasn’t 
a boy.” 

“Maybe she did bless the child,” says 
Hannah,” maybe she did.” 

Their eyes are on that little green spot 
up on the mountain side, the cemetery . 
Then the big husband puts his arm about 
his tidy wife, and silently leads her into 
the house. 

And in the cemetery, where the birds 
are singing among the trees, and the hares 
leap about fearlessly, and the insects chirp 
unceasingly, and the flowers pour forth 
their fragrance, there with her mother 
sleeps the little girl who was so much 
calumniated, with whom everything 
went wrong; the girl known as poor 
little ill-starred Babbie. 


(The End.) 



©)e Mp of tlje Coal Jficllis. 

BY 

WILL W. WHALEN. 

When you have had your fill of the latest 
4 ‘best-seller / 9 and are aweary of following the 
career of a much-married, much-divorced hero- 
ine, a Vampire lady, a “Bella Donna,” and a 
“Becky Sharp” pounded into one; when you 
are sick to death of seeing the dame eluding the 
laws, and wedding her sister's second husband, 
him thrice divorced, skip over to the last chap- 
ter, and be done with the ravishingly lovely 
matron, her steadily persistent pink cheeks and 
her lemon-shaded hair . 

Then take up “The Lily of the Coal Fields,” 
and go back to nature and the simple life. 

Sheridan devastated the Shenandoah Valley 
so thoroughly that it was said: “If a crow wants 
to fly down the Shenandoah, he must carry his 
provisions with him.” I thought of that sen- 
tence when I was visiting the anthracite regions, 
so bleak and dreary was the little town with its 
huge barren banks of culm. Yet those black 
dead fields have produced “The Lily” — a hero- 
ine sweet as a “violet in a valley of moss, or a 
primrose beneath the shadow of an oak.” 

“The Lily” is an unusual novel. Everybody 
is more or less interested in the anthracite 
miners of Pennsylvania. The fiction writer has 
heretofore ignored the laborers in the coal fields. 


Now Will W. Whalen, “the Bazin of the coal 
regions,” born and bred amongst the miners, 
comes out of the East, and tells us much of their 
lives. 

From the first chapter where “The Lily” is 
discovered digging a salad bed to the finale 
where she is found in the arms of her miner- 
hero, the story is fascinating. Here and there 
throughout the book are thought-compelling 
sentences. The frontispiece is a beautiful, ap- 
pealing figure, drawn by Mr. F. S. Brunner, of 
the “Saturday Evening Post.” The novel is 
dedicated : 

“To the noble men and women who are so 
strenuously opposing the heaven-defying ‘white 
slave’ trade — to those friends of the pure-souled 
servant girls, fresh from the green innocent 
country; and facing the dangers of that popu- 
lated, infested wilderness, the city.” 

Wilfred Ferguson . 

“The narrative has an effective plot, and the 
tone throughout is wholesome. Primarily the 
story treats of a young girl living in the anthra- 
cite coal regions of Pennsylvania, who is com- 
pelled by circumstances to seek a position in a 
large city. Her experiences there are narrated 
with considerable dramatic force, and her win- 
some manner and engaging personality make 
her an unusually pleasing heroine.” 

Philadelphia “Press.” 

“The writer gives the native wit and humor 
of the Irish in a very pleasant and amusing 
way . . a way that is quite true to the life. 

The talk of the women, especially of the hero- 


ine’s mother, could not be better, it seems to 
us.” 

Men & Women. 

‘ ‘The story is interesting to a degree and 
moves along briskly, and without a single hitch 
to the finale which, of course, finds everything 
serene as the unflecked skies of May.” 

Rosary. 

‘‘There is not a dull line in the story. . . .It is 
realistic without being hard or coarse. . . Messrs. 
Baer and Co., who imagine themselves possessed 
of a divine right to rob the miners ought to read 
this book.” 

Boston Pilot. 

“Amid breakers and coal dust, noise of ma- 
chinery, clouds of smoke and unpoetic hills of 
culm, the author has produced a very readable 
book.” 

True Voice. 

“One feels the author was in dead earnest 
when he wrote.” 

Brooklyn Tablet . 

“Most of the characters are cameos, real 
photographs from life. We can almost feel the 
breath of the admirable ‘Lily’ on our cheek as 
we pore over the page.” 

Gettysburg ‘ ‘ Chronicle . 9 9 




























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OCT 3 1912 









